
Class 
Book. 



The Dragon 



A WONDER PLAY IN THREE ACTS 



'■ ^ 



By 

Lady Gregory 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Wc^t llnitfeerljocfeer ^xti& 

1920 



Copyright, 1920, by 
Lady Gregory 

mn f IS28 



TO 
ANNE AND CATHERINE 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Act 1 9 

Act II 51 

Act III 81 



THE DRAGON 

Persons 

The King. 

The Queen. 

The Princess Ntiala. 

The Dall Glic (The Blind Wise Man). 

The Nurse. 

The Prince of the Marshes. 

Manus, King of Sorcha. 

Pint an, The Astrologer. 

Taig. 

Sibby (Taig's Mother.) 

Gatekeeper. 

Two Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes. 

Poreign Men Bringing in Food. 

The Dragon. 



ACT I 



By Lady Gregory 



DRAMA 

Seven Short Plays 
Folk-History Plays, 2 vols. 
New Comedies 
The Image 
The Golden Apple 

Our Irish Theatre. A Chapter of Auto- 
biography 



IRISH FOLK LORE AND LEGEND 

Visions and Beliefs, 2 vols. 
Cuchulain of Muirthemne 
Gods and Fighting Men 
Saints and Wonders 
Poets and Dreamers 
The Kiltartan Poetry Book 



ACT I 

Scene: A room in the King's house at Burren. 
Large window at back with deep window 
seat. Doors right and left. A small table 
and some chairs. 

Dall Glic: {Coming in with tray, which he 
puts on table- Goes back to door.) You can 
come in, King. There is no one here. 

King: {Coming in.) That's very good. I 
was in dread the Queen might be in it. 

Dall Glic: It is a good thought I had bring- 
ing it in here, and she gone to give learning to 
the Princess. She is not Hkely to come this 
side. It would be a great pity to annoy her. 

King: {Hastily swallowing a mouthful.) 
Look out now the door and keep a good watch. 
The time she will draw upon me is when I am 
eating my little bite. 

Dall Glic: I'll do that. What I wouldn't 



lo The Dragon 

see with my one eye, there's no other would 
see with three. 

King: A month to-day since I wed with her, 
and well pleased I am to be back in my own 
place. I give you word my teeth are rusting 
with the want of meat. On the journey I got 
no fair play. She wouldn't be willing to see me 
nourish myself, unless maybe with the marrow 
bone of a wren. 

Dall Glic: Sure she lays down she is but 
thinking of the good of your health. 

King: Maybe so. She is apt to be paying too 
much attention to what will be for mine and 
for the world's good. I kept my health fair 
enough, and the first wife not begrudging me 
my enough. I don't know what in the world 
led me not to stop as I was. 

Dall Glic: It is what you were saying, it was 
for the good of the Princess Nuala, and of 
yourself. 

King: That is what herself laid down. It 
would be a great ease to my mind, she was say- 
ing, to have in the house with the young girl. 



The Dragon ii 

a far-off cousin of the King of Alban, and that 
had been conversation woman in his Court. 

Dall Glic: So it might be too. She is a great 
manager of people. 

King: She is that ... I think I hear her 
coming. . . . Throw a cloth over the plates. 

Queen: {Coming in.) I was in search of 
you. 

King: I thought you were in Nuala's sunny 
parlour, learning her to play music and to go 
through books. 

Queen: That is what I thought to do. But I 
hadn't hardly started to teach her the principles 
of conversation and the branches of relation- 
ships and kindred of the big people of the 
earth, when she plucked off the coverings I had 
put over the cages, and set open their doors, till 
the fiery birds of Sabes and the canaries of the 
eastern world were screeching around my 
head, giving out every class of cry and call. 

King: So they would too. 

Queen: The royal eagles stirred up till I 
must quit the place with their squawking, and 



12 The Dragon 

the enchanted swans raising up their heads and 
pecking at the beadwork on my gown. 

King: Ah, she has a wish for the birds of the 
air, that are by nature light and airy the same 
as herself. 

Queen: It is time for her to turn her mind 
to good sense. What's that? (Whipping 
cloth from tray.) Is it that you are eating 
again, and it is but one half -hour since your 
breakfast? 

King: Ah, that wasn't a breakfast you'd call 
a breakfast. 

Queen: Very healthy food, oaten meal flum- 
mery with whey, and a griddle cake ; dandelion 
tea and sorrel from the field. 

King: My old fathers ate their enough of 
wild herbs and the like in the early time of the 
world. I'm thinking that it is in my nature to 
require a good share of nourishment as if to 
make up for the hardships they went through. 

Queen: What now have you within that 
pastry wall? 

King: It is but a little leveret pie. 

Queen: (Poking zvith fork.) Leveret! 



The Dragon 13 

What's this in it? The thickness of a blanket 
of beef; calves' sweetbreads; cocks' combs; 
balls mixed with livers and with spice. You 
to so much as taste of it, you'll be crippled and 
crappled with the gout, and roaring out in your 
pain. 

King: I tell you my generations have enough 
done of fasting and for making little of the 
juicy meats of the world. 

Queen: And the waste of it! Goose eggs 
and jellies. . . . That much would furnish out 
a dinner for the whole of the King of Alban's 
Court. 

King: Ah, I wouldn't wish to be using any- 
thing at all, only for to gather strength for to 
steer the business of the whole of the kingdom ! 

Queen: Have you enough ate now, my dear? 
Are you satisfied? 

King: I am not. I would wish for a little 
taste of that saffron cake having in it raisins of 
the sun. 

Queen: Saffron! Are you raving? You to 
have within you any of the four-and-twenty 



14 The Dragon 

sicknesses of the race, it would throw it out in 
red blisters on your skin. 

King: Let me just taste one little slab of 
that venison ham. 

Queen: {Poking with a fork.) It would take 
seven chewings! Sudden death it would be! 
Leave it alone now and rise up. To keep in 
health every man should quit the table before 
he is satisfied — there are some would walk to 
the door and back with every bite. 

King: Is it that I am to eat my meal stand- 
ing, the same as a crane in a shallow, or moving 
from tuft to thistle like you'd see a jennet on 
the high road ? 

Queen: Well, at the least, let you drink down 
a share of this tansy juice. I was telling you 
it would be answerable to your health. 

King: You are doing entirely too much for 
me. 

Queen: Sure I am here to be comfortable to 
you. This house before I came into it was but 
a ship without a rudder ! Here now, take the 
spoon in your hand. 



The Dragon 15 

Dall Glic: Leave it there, Queen, and I'll 
engage he'll swallow it down bye-and-bye. 

Queen: Is it that you are meddling, Dall 
Glic? It is time some person took you in hand. 
I wonder now could that dark eye of yours be 
cured? 

Dall Glic: It is given in that it can not, by 
doctors and by druids. 

Queen: That is a pity now, it gives you a 
sort of a one-sided look. It might not be so 
hard a thing to put out the sight of the other. 

Dall Glic: I'd sooner leave them the way 
they are. 

Queen: I'll put a knot on my handkerchief 
till such time as I can give my mind to it. ... 
Now, my dear {to King), make no more delay. 
It is right to drink it down after your meal. 
The stomach to be bare empty, the medicine 
might prey upon the body till it would be wore 
away and consumed. 

King: Time enough. Let it settle now for 
a minute. 

Queen: Here, now, I'll hold your nose the 
way you will not get the taste of it. 



1 6 The Dragon 

{She holds spoon to his mouth. A ball 
flies in at window; he starts and 
medicine is spilled.) 

Princess: {Coming in with Nurse.) Is it 
true what they are teUing me? 

Queen: Do you see that you near hit the 
King with your ball, and, what is worse again, 
you have his medicine spilled from the spoon. 

Princess: {Patting him.) Poor old King. 

Queen: Have you your lessons learned? 

Princess: {Throwing hooks in the air.) 
Neither line nor letter of them! Poem book! 
Brehon Laws ! I have done with books ! I am 
seventeen years old to-day ! 

Queen: There is no one would think it and 
you so flighty as you are. 

Princess: {To King.) Is it true that the 
cook is gone away ? 

King: {Aghast.) What's that you're say- 
ing? 

Queen: Don't be annoying the King's mind 
with such things. He should be hidden from 
every trouble and care. 

Princess: Was it you sent him away? 



The Dragon 17 

Queen: Not at all. If he went it was 
through foolishness and pride. 

Princess: It is said in the house that you 
annoyed him. 

Queen: I never annoyed any person in my 
life, unless it might be for their own good. 
But it fails some to recognise their best friend. 
Just teaching him I was to pickle onion thin- 
nings as it was done at the King of Alban's 
Court. 

Princess: Didn't he know that before? 

Queen: Whether or no, he gave me very 
little thanks, but turned around and asked his 
wages. Hurrying him and harrying him he 
said I was, and away with him, himself and 
his four-and-twenty apprentices. 

King: That is bad news, and pitiful news. 

Queen: Do not be troubling yourself at all. 
It will be easy find another. 

King: It might not be easy to find so good 
a one. A great pity! A dinner or a supper 
not to be rightly dressed is apt to give no 
pleasure in the eating or in the bye-and-bye. 

Queen: I have taken it in hand. I have 



1 8 The Dragon 

a good headpiece! I put out a call with run- 
ning lads, and with the army captains through 
the whole of the five provinces; and along with 
that, I have it put up on tablets at the post 
office. 

Princess: I am sorry the old one to be gone. 
To remember him is nearly the farthest spot in 
my memory. 

Queen: (Sharply.) If you want the house 
to be under your hand only, it is best for you 
to settle into one of your own. 

Princess: Give me the little rush cabin by 
the stream and I'll be content. 

Queen: If you mind yourself and profit by 
my instruction it is maybe not a cabin you will 
be moving to but a palace. 

Princess: I'm tired of palaces. There are 
too many people in them. 

Queen: That is talking folly. When you 
settle yourself it must be in the station where 
you were born. 

Princess: I have no mind to settle myself 
yet awhile. 

Nurse: Ah, you will not be saying that the 



The Dragon 19 

time Mr. Right will come down the chimney, 
and will give you the marks and tokens of a 
king. 

Queen: There might have some come look- 
ing for her before this, if it was not for you 
petting and pampering her the way you do, and 
encouraging her flightiness and follies. It is 
likely she will get no offers till such time as I 
will have taught her the manners and the right 
customs of courts. 

Nurse: Sure I am acquainted with courts 
myself. Wasn't it I fostered comely Manus 
that is presently King of Sorcha, since his 
father went out of the world ? And as to lovers 
coming to look for her! They do be coming 
up to this as plenty as the eye could hold them, 
and she refusing them, and they laying the 
blame upon the King! 

King: That is so, they laying the blame up- 
on myself. There was the uncle of the King 
of Leinster ; he never sent me another car-load 
of asparagus from the time you banished him 
away. 

Princess: He was a widower man. 



20 The Dragon 

King: As to the heir of Orkney, since the 
time you sent him to the right about, I never 
got so much as a conger eel from his hand. 

Princess: As dull as a fish he was. He had 
a fish's eyes. 

King: That wasn't so with the champion of 
the merings of Ulster. 

Princess: A freckled man. He had hair 
the colour of a fox. 

King: I wish he didn't stop sending me his 
tribute of heather beer. 

Queen: It is a poor daughter that will not 
wish to be helpful to her father. 

Princess: HI am to wed for the furnish- 
ing of my father's table, it's as good for you 
to wrap me in a speckled fawnskin and roast 
me! 

(Runs out, tossing her ball.) 

Queen: She is no way fit for marriage unless 
with a herd to the birds of the air, till she has 
a couple of years schooling. 

King: It would be hard to put her back to 
that. 



The Dragon 21 

Queen: I must take it in hand. She is get- 
ting entirely too much of her own way. 

Nurse: Leave her alone, and in the end it 
will be a good way. 

Queen: To keep rules and hours she must 
learn, and to give in to order and good sense. 
(To King.) There is a pigeon messenger I 
brought from Alban I am about to let loose on 
this day with news of myself and of yourself. 
I will send with it a message to a friend I have, 
bidding her to make ready for Nuala a place 
in her garden of learning and her school. 

King: That is going too fast. There is no 
hurry. 

Queen: She is seventeen years. There is no 
day to be lost. I will go write the letter. 

Nurse: Oh, you wouldn't send away the 
poor child ! 

Dall Glic: It would be a great hardship to 
send her so far. Our poor little Princess Nu ! 

Queen: (Sharply.) What are saying? 
(Dall Glic is silent.) 

King: I would not wish her to be sent out 
of this. 



22 The Dragon 

Queen: There is no other way to set her 
mind to sense and learning. It will be for her 
own good. 

Nurse: Where's the use troubling her with 
lessons and with books that maybe she will 
never be in need of at all. Speak up for her, 
King. 

King: Let her stop for this year as she is. 

Queen: You are all too soft and too easy. 
She will turn on you and will blame you for it, 
and another year or two years slipped by. 

Nurse: That she may! 

Dall Glic: Who knows what might take 
place within the twelvemonth that is coming? 

King: Ah, don't be talking about it. Maybe 
it never might come to pass. 

Dall Glic: It will come to pass, if there is 
truth in the clouds of sky. 

King: It will not be for a year, anyway. 
There'll be many an ebbing and flowing of the 
tide within a year. 

Queen: What at all are you talking about? 

King: Ah, where's the use of talking too 
much. 



The Dragon 23 

Queen: Making riddles you are, and striv- 
ing to keep the meaning from your comrade, 
that is myself. 

King: It's best not be thinking about the 
thing you would not wish, and maybe it might 
never come around at all. To strive to forget 
a threat yourself, it might maybe be forgotten 
by the universe. 

Queen: Is it true something was threatened? 

King: How would I know is anything true, 
and the world so full of Hes as it is? 

Nurse: That is so. He might have been 
wrong in his foretelling. What is he in the 
finish but an old prophecy ? 

Dall Glic: Is it of Fintan you are saying 
that? 

Queen: And who, will you tell me, is Fintan? 

Dall Glic: Anyone that never heard tell of 
Fintan never heard anything at all. 

Queen: His name was not up on the tablets 
of big men at the King of Alban's Court, or of 
Britain. 

Nurse: Ah, sure in those countries they are 
without religion or belief. 



24 The Dragon 

Queen: Is it that there was a prophecy? 

King: Don't mind it. What are prophecies ? 
Don't we hear them every day of the week? 
And if one comes true there may be seven blind 
and come to nothing. 

Queen: {To Dall Glic.) I must get to the 
root of this, and the handle. Who, now, is 
Fintan ? 

Dall Glic: He is an astrologer, and under- 
standing the nature of the stars. 

Nurse: He wore out in his lifetime three 
eagles and three palm trees and three earthen 
dykes. It is down in a cleft of the rocks be- 
yond he has his dwelling presently, the way 
he can be watching the stars through the day- 
time. 

Dall Glic: He prophesied in a prophecy, and 
it is written in clean letters in the King's yew- 
tree box. 

King: It is best to keep it out of sight. It 
being to be, it will be; and, if not, where's the 
use troubling our mind? 

Queen: Sound it out to me. 

Dall Glic: {Looking from window and 



The Dragon 25 

drawing curtain.) There is no story in the 
world is worse to me or more pitiful ; I wouldn't 
wish any person to hear. 

Nurse: Oh, take care it would come to the 
ears of my darling Nu! 

Dall Glic: It is said by himself and the 
heavens that in a year from this day the King's 
daughter will be brought away and devoured 
by a scaly Green Dragon that will come from 
the North of the World. 

Queen: A Dragon! I thought you were 
talking of some danger. I wouldn't give in to 
dragons. I never saw one. I'm not in dread 
of beasts unless it might be a mouse in the 
night-time ! 

King: Put it out of mind. It is likely any- 
way that the world will soon be ended the way' 
it is. 

Queen: I will send and search out this as- 
trologer and will question him. 

Dall Glic: You have not far to search. He 
is outside at the kitchen door at this minute,' 
and as if questioning after something, and it 



26 The Dragon 

a half -score and seven years since I knew him 
to come out of his cave. 

King: Do not! He might waken up the 
Dragon and put him in mind of the girl, for to 
make his own foretelling come true. 

Nurse: Ah, such a thing cannot be! The 
poor innocent child! (Weeps.) 

Queen: Where's the use of crying and roar- 
ing? The thing must be stopped and put an 
end to. I don't say I give in to your story, but 
that would be an unnatural death. I would be 
scandalized being stepmother to a girl that 
would be swallowed by a sea-serpent! 

Nurse: Ochone! Don't be talking of it at 
all! 

Queen: At the King of Alban's Court, one 
of the iroyal family to die over, it will be 
naturally on a pillow, and the dead-bells ring- 
ing, and a burying with white candles, and 
crape on the knocker of the door, and a flag- 
stone put over the grave. What way could we 
put a stone or so much as a rose-bush over 
Nuala and she in the inside of a water-worm 



The Dragon 27 

might be ploughing its way down to the north 
of the world? 

Nurse: Och! that is what is killing me en- 
tirely! O save her, save her. 

King: I tell you, it being to be, it will be. 

Queen: You may be right, so, when you 
would not go to the expense of paying her 
charges at the Royal school. But wait, now, 
there is a plan coming into my mind. 

Nurse: There must surely be some way! 

Queen: It is likely a king's daughter the 
beast — if there is a beast — ^will come questing 
after, and not after a king's wife. 

Dall Glic: That is according to custom. 

Queen: That's what I am saying. What we 
have to do Is to join Nuala with a man of a hus- 
band, and she will be safe from the danger 
ahead of her. In all the inventions made by 
poets, for to put terror on children or to knock 
laughter out of fools, did any of you ever hear 
of a Dragon swallowing the wedding-ring? 

All: We never did. 

Queen: It's easy enough so. There must be 
no delay till Nuala will be married and wed 



28 The Dragon 

with someone that will bring her away out of 
this, and let the Dragon go hungry home ! 

Nurse: That she may! Isn't it a pity now 
she being so hard to please ! 

Queen: Young people are apt to be selfish 
and to have no thought but for themselves. 
She must not be hard to please when it will be 
to save and to serve her family and to keep up 
respect for their name. Here she is coming. 

Nurse: Ah, you would not tell her! You 
would not put the dear child under the shadow 
of such a terror and such a threat! 

King: She must not be told. I never could 
bear up against it. 

(Nuala comes in.) 

Queen: Look now at your father the way 
he is. 

Princess: (Touching his hand.) What is 
fretting you? 

Queen: His heart as weighty as that the 
chair near broke under him. 

Princess: I never saw you this way before. 

Queen: And all on the head of yourself! 



The Dragon 29 

Princess: I am sorry, and very sorry, for 
that. 

Queen: He is loth to say it to you, but he is 
tired and wore out waiting for you to settle 
with some match. See what a troubled look 
he has on his face. 

Princess: {To King.) Is it that you want 
me to leave you ? (He gives a sob. ) {To Dall 
Glic.) Is it the Queen urged him to this? 

Dall Glic: If she did, it was surely for your 
good. 

Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling, let 
you strive to take a liking to some good man 
that will come! 

Princess: Are you going against me with 
the rest? 

Nurse: You know well I would never do 
that ! 

Princess: Do you, father, urge me to go ? 

King: They are in too big a hurry. Why 
wouldn't they wait a while, for a quarter, or 
three-quarters of a year. 

Princess: Is that all the delay I am given, 



30 The Dragon 

and the term is set for me, Hke a servant that 
would be banished from the house ? 

King: That's not it. That's not right. I 
would never give in to let you go ... if it 
wasn't . . . 

Princess: I know. (Stands up.) For my 
own good! 

( Trumpet outside. ) 

Gatekeeper: (Coming in.) There is com- 
pany at the door. 

Queen: Who is it? 

Gatekeeper: Servants, and a company of 
women, and one that would seem to be a Prince, 
and young. 

Princess: Then he is come asking me in 
marriage. 

Ball Glic: Who is he at all? 

Gatekeeper: They were saying he is the son 
of the King of the Marshes. 

King: Go bring him in. 
(Gatekeeper goes.) 

Ball Glic: That's right! He has great 
riches and treasure. There are some say he is 
the first match in Ireland. 



The Dragon 31 

Nurse: He is not. If his father has a cop- 
per crown, and our own King a silver one, it 
is the King of Sorcha has a crown of gold! 
The young King of Sorcha that is the first 
match. 

Dall Glic: If he is, this one is apt to be the 
second first. 

Queen: Do you hear, Nuala, what luck is 
flowing to you? 

Dall Glic: Do not now be turning your back 
on him as you did to so many. 

Princess: No; whoever he is, it is likely I 
will not turn away from this one. 

Queen: Go now and ready yourself to meet 
him. 

Princess: Am I not nice enough the way 
I am? 

Queen: You are not. The King of Alban's 
daughter has hair as smooth as if a cow had 
licked it. 

{Princess goes.) 

Gatekeeper: Here is the Prince of the 
Marshes ! 



32 The Dragon 

{Enter Prince, very young and timid, 
an old lady on each side slightly in 
advance of him.) 

King: A great welcome before you 

And who may these be ? 

Prince: Seven aunts I have . . . 

First Aunt: (Interrupting.) If he has, there 
are but two of us have come along with him. 

Second Aunt: For to care him and be com- 
pany for him on his journey, it being the first 
time he ever quitted home. 

Queen: This is a great honour. Will you 
take a chair ? 

First Aunt: Leave that for the Prince of 
the Marshes. It is away from the draught of 
the window. 

Second Aunt: We ourselves are in charge 
of his health. I have here his eel-skin boots 
for the days that will be wet under foot. 

First Aunt: And I have here my little bag 
of cures, with a cure in it that would rise the 
body out of the grave as whole and as sound 
as the time you were born. 
{Lays it down.) 



The Dragon 33 

King: (To Prince.) It is many a day your 
father and myself were together in our early 
time. What way is he? He was farther out in 
age than myself. 

Prince: He is . . . 

First Aunt: (Interrupting.) He is only 
middling these last years. The doctors have 
taken him in hand. 

King: He was more for fowling, and I 
was more for horses — before I increased so 
much in girth. Is it for horses you are, 
Prince? 

Prince: I didn't go up on one up to this. 

First Aunt: Kings and princes are getting 
scarce. They are the most class is wearing 
away, and it is right for them keep in mind 
their safety. 

Second Aunt: The Prince has no need to 
go upon a horse, where he has always a coach 
at his command. 

King: It is fowling that suits you so? 

Prince: I would be well pleased ... 

First Aunt: There is great danger going 



34 The Dragon 

out fowling with a gun that might turn on you 
after and take your Hfe. 

Second Aunt: Why would the Prince go into 
danger, having servants that will go following 
after birds? 

Queen: He is likely waiting till his enemies 
will make an attack upon the country to defend 
it. 

First Aunt: There is a good dyke around 
about the marshes, and a sort of quaking bog. 
It is not likely war will come till such time as 
it will be made by the birds of the air. 

King: Well, we must strive to knock out 
some sport or some pleasure. 

Prince: It was not on pleasure I was sent. 

First Aunt: That's so, but on business. 

Second Aunt: Very weighty business. 

King: Let the lad tell it out himself. 

Prince: I hope there is no harm in me com- 
ing hither. I would be loth to push on you . . . 

First Aunt: We thought it was right, as he 
was come to sensible years . . . 

King: Stop a minute, ma'am, give him his 
time. 



The Dragon 35 

Prince: My father . . . and his counsel- 
lors . . . and my seven aunts . . . that said 
it would be right for me to join with a wife. 

Queen: They showed good sense in that. 

Prince: (Rapidly.) They bade me come 
and take a look at your young lady of a Prin- 
cess to see would, she be likely to be pleasing 
to them. 

Pirst Aunt: That's it, and that is what 
brought ourselves along with him — to see 
would we be satisfied. 

King: I don't know. The girl is young — 
she's young. 

First Aunt: It is what we were saying, that 
might be no drawback. It might be easier train 
her in our own ways, and to do everything that 
is right. 

King: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing 
that is right, but it's sometimes hard to know. 

Second Aunt: Not in our place. What the 
King of the Marshes would not know, his coun- 
sellors and ourselves would know. 

Queen: It will be very answerable to the 
Princess to be under such good guidance. 



36 The Dragon 

First Aunt: For low people and for mid- 
dling people it is well enough to follow their 
own opinion and their will. But for the 
Prince's wife to have any choice or any will 
of her own, the people would not believe her to 
be a real princess. 

(Princess comes to door, listening un- 
seen. ) 
King: Ah, you must not be too strict with 
a girl that has life in her. 

Prince: My seven aunts that were saying 
they have a great distrust of any person that is 
lively. 

First Aunt: We would rather than the 
greatest beauty in the world get him a wife 
who would be content to stop in her home. 

(Princess comes in very stately and 

with a fine dress. She curtseys. 

Aunts curtsey and sit down again. 

Prince hows uneasily and sidles 

away- ) 

First Aunt: Will you sit, now, between the 

two of us? 

Princess: It is more fitting for a young girl 



The Dragon 37 

to stay in her standing in the presence of a 
king's kindred and his son, since he is come 
so far to look for me. 

Second Aunt: That is a very nice thought. 

Princess: My far-off grandmother, the old 
people were telling me, never sat at the table 
to put a bit in her mouth till such time as her 
lord had risen up satisfied. She was that obedi- 
ent to him that if he had bidden her, she would 
have laid down her hand upon red coals. 
{Prince looks bored and fidgets.) 

First Aunt: Very good indeed. 

Princess: That was a habit with my grand- 
mother. I would wish to follow in her ways. 

King: This is some new talk. 

Queen: Stop; she is speaking fair and good. 

Princess: A little verse, made by some good 
wife, I used to be learning. "I always should : 
Be very good : At home should mind : My hus- 
band kind: Abroad obey: What people say." 

First Aunt: (Getting up.) To travel the 
world, I never thought to find such good sense 
before me. Do you hear that, Princ^f 



38 The Dragon 

Prince: Sure I often heard yourselves shap- 
ing that sort. 

Second Aunt: I'll engage the royal family 
will make no objection to this young lady tak- 
ing charge of your house. 

Princess: I can do that! (Counts on fin- 
gers.) To send linen to the washing-tub on 
Monday, and dry it on Tuesday, and to mangle 
it Wednesday, and starch it Thursday, and 
iron it Friday, and fold it in the press against 
Sunday ! 

Second Aunt: Indeed there is little to learn 
you ! And on Sundays, now, you will go driv- 
ing in a painted coach, and your dress sewed 
with gold and with pearls, and the poor of the 
world envying you on the road. 

Queen: (Claps hands.) There is no one but 
must envy her, and all that is before her for 
her lifetime! 

First Aunt: Here is the golden arm-ring 
the Prince brought for to slip over your hand. 

Second Aunt: It was put on all our genera- 
tions of queens at the time of the making of 
their match. 



The Dragon 39 

Princess: {Drawing hack her hand.) Mine 
is not made yet. 

First Aunt: Didn't you hear me saying, and 
the Prince saying, there is nothing could be 
laid down against it. 

Princess: There is one thing against it. 

Queen: Oh, there can be nothing worth 
while ! 

Princess: A thing you would think a great 
drawback and all your kindred would think it. 

Queen: {Rapidly.) There is nothing, but 
maybe that she is not so tall as you might think, 
through the length of the heels of her shoes. 

Second Aunt: We would put up with that 
much. 

Princess: {Rapidly.) It is that there was 
a spell put upon me — by a water-witch that was 
of my kindred. At some hours of the day I am 
as you see me, but at other hours I am changed 
into a sea-filly from the Country-under-Wave. 
And when I smell salt on the west wind I must 
race and race and race. And when I hear the 
call of the gulls or the sea-eagles over my head, 
I must leap up to meet them till I can hardly 



40 The Dragon 

tell what is my right element, is it the high air 
or is it the loosened spring-tide ! 

Queen: Stop your nonsense talk. She is 
gone wild and raving with the great luck that 
is come to her! 

{Prince has stood up, and is watching 
her eagerly. ) 

Princess: I feel a wind at this very time that 
is blowing from the wilderness of the sea, and 
I am changing with it. . . . There. {Pulls 
dozvn her hair. ) Let my mane go free ! I will 
race you, Prince, I will race you ! The wind of 
March will not overtake me. Prince, and I run- 
ning on the top of the white waves ! 

{Runs out; Prince entranced, rushes to 
door. ) 

Aunts: {Catching hold of him.) Are you 
going mad wild like herself? 

Prince: Oh, I will go after her! 

First Aunt: {Clutching him.) Do not! She 
will drag you to destruction. 

Prince: {Struggling to door.) What mat- 
ter ! Let me go or she will escape me ! {Shak- 



The Dragon 41 

ing himself free. ) I will never stop till I come 
to her. 

{He rushes out, Second Aunt still hold- 
ing on to him.) 

First Aunt: What at all has come upon him? 
I never knew him this way before! 
{She trots after him.) 

Princess: {Comes leaping in by window.) 
They are gone running the road to Muckanish ! 
But they won't find me ! 

Queen: You have a right to be ashamed of 
yourself and your play-game. It's easy for you 
to go joking, having neither cark nor care : that 
is no way to treat the second best match in 
Ireland! 

King: You were saying you had your mind 
made up to take him. 

Princess: It failed me to do it! Himself 
and his counsellors and his seven aunts ! 

Queen: He will give out that you are crazed 
and mad. 

Princess: He will be thankful to his lifers 
end to have got free of me ! 

King: I don't know. It seemed to me he 



42 The Dragon 

was better pleased with you in the finish than 
in the commencement. But I'm in dread his 
father may not be well pleased. 

Princess: (Patting him.) Which now of 
the two of you is the most to be pitied? He to 
have such a timid son or you to have such an 
unruly daughter? 

Queen: It is likely he will make an attack 
on you. There was a war made by the King 
of Britain on the head of a terrier pup that was 
sent to him and that made away on the road 
following hares. It's best for you to make 
ready to put yourself at the head of your troop. 

King: It's long since I went into my battle 
dress. I'm in dread it would not close upon 
my chest. 

Queen: Ah, it might, so soon as you would 
go through a few hardships in the fight. 

King: If the rest of Adam's race was of my 
opinion there'd be no fighting in the world at 
all. 

Queen: It is this child's stubbornness is lead- 
ing you into it. Go out, Nuala, after the 



The Dragon 43 

Prince. Tell him you are sorry you made a 
fool of him. 

Princess: He was that before — thinking to 
put me sitting and sewing in a cushioned chair, 
listening to stories of kings making a slaughter 
of one another. 

Queen: Tell him you have changed your 
mind, that you were but funning; that you will 
wed with him yet. 

Princess: I would sooner wed with the 
King of Poison! I to have to go to his king- 
dom, Pd sooner go earning my wages footing 
turf, with a skirt of heavy flannel and a dress 
of the grey frieze! Himself and his bogs and 
his frogs! 

Queen: I tell you it is time for you to take 
a husband. 

Princess: You said that before ! And I was 
giving in a while ago, and I felt the blood of 
my heart to be rising against it! And I will 
not give in to you again! It is my own busi- 
ness and I will take my own way. 

Queen: {To King.) This is all one with 
the raving of a hag against heaven! 



44 The Dragon 

King: What the Queen is saying is right 
Try now and come around to it. 

Princess: She has set you against me with 
her talk! 

Queen: (To King.) It is best for you to lay 
orders on her. 

Princess: The King is not under your 
orders ! 

Queen: You are striving to make him give 
in to your own ! 

King: I will take orders from no one at all! 

Queen: Bid her go bring back the Prince. 

Princess: I say that I will not ! 

Queen: She is standing up against you! 
Will you give in to that? 

King: I am bothered with the whole of you! 
I will give in to nothing at all ! 

Queen: Make her do your bidding so. 

King: Can't you do as you are told? 

Princess: This concerns myself. 

King: It does, and the whole of us. 

Princess: Do you think you can force me 
to wed? 

King: I do think it, and I will do it. 



The Dragon 45 

Princess: It will fail you ! 

King: It will not! I was too easy with you 
up to this. 

Princess: Will you turn me out of the 
house? 

King: I will give you my word, it is little 
but I will! 

Princess: Then I have no home and no 
father! It is to my mother you must give an 
account. You know well it is with the first 
wife you will go at the Judgment ! 

Queen: Is it that you would make threats 
to the King? And put insults upon myself? 
Now she is daring and defying you ! Let you 
put an end to it ! 

King: I will do that! {Stands up.) I swear 
by the oath my people swear by, the seven 
things common to us all ; by sun and moon ; sea 
and dew ; wind and water ; the hours of the day 
and night, I will give you in marriage and in 
wedlock to the first man that will come into the 
house ! 

Princess: (Shrinking as from a blow.) It 
is the Queen has done this. 



46 The Dragon 

Queen: I will give you out the reason, and 
see will you put blame on me or praise! 

Nurse: Oh, let you stop and not draw it 
down upon her ! 

Queen: It is right for me to tell it; it is true 
telling! You not to be married and wed by 
this day twelvemonth, there will be a terrible 
thing happen you . . . 

Nurse: Be quiet! Don't you see Fintan 
himself looking in the window! 

King: Fintan! What is it bring you here 
on this day? 

Fintan: (A very old man in strange clothes 
at window.) What brings me is to put my 
curse upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that 
are gone and vanished out of this, without 
bringing me my request, that was a bit of ren- 
dered lard that would limber the swivel of my 
spy-glass, that is clogged with the dripping of 
the cave. 

Nurse: And you have no bad news? 

Queen: Nothing to say on the head of the 
Princess, this being, as it is, her birthday? 

Fintan: What birthday? This is not a 



The Dragon 47 

birthday that signifies. It is the next will be 
the birthday will be concerned with the great 
story that is foretold. 

Queen: It is right for her to know it. 

King: It is not! It is not! 

Princess: Whatever the story is, let me 
know it, and not be treated as a child that is 
without courage or sense. 

Fintan: It's long till I'll come out from my 
cleft again, and getting no peace or quiet on 
the ridge of the earth. It is laid down by the 
stars that cannot lie, that on this day twelve- 
month, you yourself will be ate and devoured 
by a scaly Green Dragon from the North! 

END OF ACT I. 



ACT II 



ACT II 

Scene: The Same. Princess and Nurse. 

Nurse: Cheer up now, my honey bird, and 
don't be fretting. 

Princess: It is not easy to quit fretting, and 
the terrible story you are after telling me of 
all that is before and all that is behind me. 

Nurse: They had no right at all to go make 
you aware of it. The Queen has too much 
talk. An unlucky stepmother she is to you ! 

Princess: It is well for me she is here. It is 

well I am told the truth, where the whole of 

you were treating me like a child without sense, 

so giddy I was and contrary, and petted and 

humoured by the whole of you. What memory 

would there be left of me and my little life gone 

by, but of a headstrong, unruly child with no 

thought but for myself. 

Nurse: No, but the best in the world you 
51 



52 The Dragon 

are; there is no one seeing you pass by but 
would love you. 

Princess: That is not so. I was wild and 
taking my own way, mocking and humbugging. 

Nurse. I never will give in that there is no 
way to save you from that Dragon that is fore- 
told to be your destruction. I would give the 
four divisions of the world, and Ireland along 
with them, if I could see you pelting your ball 
in at the window the same as an hour ago ! 

Princess: Maybe you will, so long as it will 
hurt nobody. 

Nurse: Ah, sure it's no wonder there to be 
the tracks of tears upon your face, and that 
great terror before you. 

Princess: I will wipe them away ! I will not 
give in to danger or to dragons ! No one will 
see a dark face on me. I am a king's daughter 
of Ireland, I did not come out of a herd's hut 
like Deirdre that went sighing and lamenting 
till she was put to death, the world being sick 
and tired of her complaints, and her finger at 
her eye dripping tears ! 



The Dragon 53 

Nurse: That's right, now. You had always 
great courage. 

Princess: There is Hke a change within me. 
You never will hear a cross word from me 
again. I would wish to be pleasant and peace- 
able until such time . . . 

{Puts handkerchief to eyes and goes.) 

Dall Glic: {Coming in.) The King is 
greatly put out with all he went through, and 
the way the passion rose in him a while ago. 

Nurse: That he may be twenty times worse 
before he is better! Showing such fury to- 
wards the innocent child the way he did ! 

Dall Glic: The Queen has brought him to 
the grass plot for to give him his exercise, 
walking his seven steps east and west. 

Nurse: Hasn't she great power over him to 
make him do that much? 

Dall Glic: I tell you I am in dread of her 
myself. Some plan she has for making my two 
eyes equal. I vexed her someway, and she got 
queer and humpy, and put a lip on herself, and 
said she would take me in hand. I declare I 
never will have a minute's ease thinking of it. 



54 The Dragon 

Nurse: The King should have done his 
seven steps, for I hear her coming. 

{Dall Glic goes to recess of window.) 

Queen: {Coming in.) Did you, Nurse, ever 
at any time turn and dress a dinner? 

Nurse: {Very stiff.) Indeed I never did. 
Any house I ever was in there was a good kit- 
chen and well attended, the Lord be praised! 

Queen: Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige 
the King. 

Nurse: Troth, the same King will wait long 
till he'll see any dish I will ready for him! I 
am not one that was reared between the flags 
and the oven in the corner of the one room! 
To be a nurse to King's children is my trade, 
and not to go stirring mashes, for hens or for 
humans ! 

Queen: I heard a crafty woman lay down 
one time there was no way to hold a man, only 
by food and flattery. 

Nurse: Sure any mother of children walk- 
ing the road could tell you that much. 

Queen: I went maybe too far urging him 
not to lessen so much food the way he did. I 



The Dragon 55 

only thought to befriend him. But now he is 
someway upset and nothing will rightly smooth 
him but to be thinking upon his next meal ; and 
what it will be I don't know, unless the berries 
of the bush. 

Dall Glic: {Leaning out of the window.) 
Here! Hi! Come this way! 

Queen: Who are you calling to? 

Dall Glic: It is someone with the appear- 
ance of a cook. 

Queen: Are you saying it is a cook? That 
now will put the King in great humour! 
(Manus appears at the window.) 

Nurse: {Looking at him.) I wouldn't 
hardly think he'd suit. He has a sort of inno- 
cent look. I wouldn't say him to be a country 
lad. I don't know is he fitted to go readying 
meals for a royal family, and the King so 
wrathful if they do not please him as he is. 
And as to the Princess Nu! There to be the 
size of a hayseed of fat overhead on her broth, 
she'd fall in a dead faint. 

Manus: I'll go on so. 



56 The Dragon 

Queen: No, no. Bring him in till I'll take 
a look at him ! 

Manus: {Coming inside.) I am a lad in 
search of a master. 

Manus: (Inside.) I am a lad in search of 
a master. 

Queen: And I myself that am wanting a 
cook. 

Manus: I got word of that and I going the 
road. 

Queen: You would seem to be but a young 
lad. 

Manus: I am not very far in age to-day. 
But I'll be a day older to-morrow. 

Queen: In what country were you born and 
reared? 

Manus: I came from over, and I am coming 
hither. 

Queen: What wages now would you be 
asking? 

Manus: Nothing at all unless what you 
think I will have earned at the time I will be 
^ leaving your service. 

Queen: That is very right and fair. I hope 



The Dragon ^'] 

you will not be asking too much help. The last 
cook had a whole fleet of scullions that were no 
use but to chatter and consume. 

Manus: I am asking no help at all but the 
help of the ten I bring with me. 
(Holds up fingers.) 

Queen: That will be a great saving in the 
house ! Can I depend upon you now not to be 
turning to your own use the King's ale and 
his wine? 

Manus: If you take me to be a thief I will 
go upon my road. It was no easier for me to 
come than to go out again. 

Queen: {Holding him.) No, now, don't be 
so proud and thinking so much of yourself. 
If I give you trial here I would wish you to be 
ready to turn your hand to this and that, and 
not be saying it is or is not your business. 

Manus: My business is to do as the King 
wishes. 

Queen: That's right. That is the way the 
servants were in the palace of the King of 
Alban. 



58 The Dragon 

Manus: That's the way I was myself in the 
King's house of Sorcha. 

Queen: Are you saying it is from that place 
you are come? Sure that should be a great 
household! The King of Sorcha, they were 
telling me, has seven castles on land and seven 
on the sea, and provision for a year and a day 
in every one of them. 

Manus: That might be. I never was in 
more than one of them at the one time. 

Queen: Anyone that has been in that place 
would surely be fitting here. Keep him, Nurse ! 
Don't let him make away from us till I will go 
call the King! 

{Goes out.) 

Nurse: Sure it was I myself that fostered 
the young King of Sorcha and reared him in 
my lap! What way is he at all? My lovely 
child ! Give me news of him ! 

Manus: I will do that . . . 

Nurse: To hear of him would delight me ! 

Manus: It is I that can tell you. . . . 

Nurse: It is himself should be a grand king! 

Manus: Listen till you hear! . . . 



The Dragon 59 

Nurse: His father was good and his mother 
was good, and it's Hkely, himself will be the 
best of all ! 

Manus: Be quiet now and hearken! . . , 

Nurse: I remember well the first day I saw 
him in the cradle, two and a score of years 
back! Oh, it is glad, and very glad, I'll be to 
get word of him ! 

Manus: He is come to sensible years. . . . 

Nurse: A golden cradle it was and it stand- 
ing on four golden balls the very round of the 
sun! 

Manus: He is out of his cradle now. 
(Shakes her shoulder. ) Let you hearken ! He 
is in need of your help. 

Nurse: He'll get it, he'll get it. I doted 
down on that child ! The best to laugh and to 
roar! 

Manus: (Putting hand on her mouth.) 
Will you be silent, you hag of a nurse? Can't 
you see that I myself am Manus, the new King 
of Sorcha? 

Nurse: (Starting back.) Do you say that? 
And how's every bit of you? Sure I'd know 



6o The Dragon 

you in any place. Stand back till I'll get the 
full of my eyes of you! Like the father you 
are, and you need never be sorry to be that! 
Well, I said to myself and you looking in at the 
window, I would not believe but there's some 
drop of kings' blood in that lad ! 

Manus: That was not what you said to me ! 

Nurse: And wasn't the journey long on you 
from Sorcha, that is at the rising of the sun? 
Is it your foot-soldiers and your bullies you 
brought with you, or did you come with your 
hound and your deer-hound and with your 
horn? 

Manus: There was no one knew of my jour- 
ney. I came bare alone. I threw a shell in the 
sea and made a boat of it, and took the track 
of the wild duck across the mountains of the 
waves. 

Nurse: And where in the world wide did 
you get that dress of a cook? 

Manus: It was at a tailor's place near 
Oughtmana. There was no one in the house 
but the mother. I left my own clothes in her 
charge and my purse of gold; I brought noth- 



The Dragon 6i 

ing but my own blue sword. {Throws open 
blouse and shows it.) She gave me this suit, 
where a cook from this house had thrown it 
down in payment for a drink of milk. I have 
no mind any person should know I am a king. 
I am letting on to be a cook. 

Nurse: I would sooner you to come as a 
champion seeking battle, or a horseman that 
had gone astray, or so far as a poet making 
praises or curses according to his treatment on 
the road. It would be a bad day I would see 
your father's son taken for a kitchen boy. 

Manus: I was through the world last night 
in a dream. It was dreamed to me that the 
King's daughter in this house is in a great 
danger. 

Nurse: So she is, at the end of a twelve- 
month. 

Manus: My warning was for this day. See- 
ing her under trouble in my dream, my heart 
was hot to come to her help. I am here to save 
her, to meet every troublesome thing that will 
come at her. 



62 The Dragon 

Nurse: Oh, my heavy blessing on you doing 
that! 

Manus: I was not willing to come as a king, 
that she would feel tied and bound to live for 
if I live, or to die with if I should die. I am 
come as a poor unknown man, that may slip 
away after the fight, to my own kingdom or 
across the borders of the world, and no thanks 
given him and no more about him, but a mem- 
ory of the shadow of a cook! 

Nurse: I would not think that to be right, 
and you the last of your race. It is best for 
you to tell the King. 

Manus: I lay my orders on you to tell no 
one at all. 

Nurse: Give me leave but to whisper it to 
the Princess Nu. It's ye would be the finest 
two the world ever saw. You will not find her 
equal in all Ireland! 

Manus: I lay it as crosses and as spells on 
you to say no word to her or to any other that 
will make known my race or my name. Give 
me now your oath. 



The Dragon 63 

Nurse: {Kneeling.) I do, I do. But they 
will know you by your high looks. 

Manus: Did you yourself know me a while 
ago? 

Nurse: (Getting up.) Oh, they're coming! 
Oh, my poor child, what way will you that 
never handled a spit be able to make out a din- 
ner for the King? 

Manus: This silver whistle, that was her 
pipe of music, was given to me by a queen 
among the Sidhe that is my godmother. At 
the sound of it there will come through the air 
any earthly thing I wish for, at my command. 

Nurse: Let it be a dinner so. 

Manus: So it will come, on a green table- 
cloth carried by four swans as white as snow. 
The freshest of every meat, the oldest of every 
drink, nuts from the trees in Adam's Paradise ! 
(King, Queen, Princess, Ball Glic come 
in. Princess sits on window sill.) 

Queen: (To King.) Here now, my dear. 
Wasn't I telling you I would take all trouble 
from your mind, and that I would not be with- 
out finding a cook for you ? 



64 The Dragon 

King: He came in a good hour. The want 
of a right dinner has downed kingdoms before 
this. 

Queen: Travelling he is in search of service 
from the kings of the earth. His wages are in 
no way out of measure. 

King: Is he a good hand at his trade? 

Queen: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to 
give a hand here and there. 

King: What way does he handle flesh, I'd 
wish to know? And all that comes up from 
the tide? Bream, now; that is a fish is very 
pleasant to me — stewed or fried with butter till 
the bones of it melt in your mouth. There is 
nothing in sea or strand but is the better of a 
quality cook — only oysters, that are best left 
alone, being as they are all gravy and fat. 

Queen: I didn't question him yet about 
cookery. 

King: It's seldom I met a woman with right 
respect for food, but for show and silly dishes 
and trash that would leave you in the finish as 
dwindled as a badger on St. Bridget's day. 

Queen: If this youth of a young man was 



The Dragon 65 

able to give satisfaction at the King of Sor- 
cha's Court, I am sure that he will make a din- 
ner to please yourself. 

Manus: I will do more than that. I will 
dress a dinner that will please w>'self. 

Princess: {Clapping hands.) Very well 
said! 

King: Sound out now some good dishes such 
as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the 
Queen will put them down in a line of writing, 
that I can be thinking about them till such time 
as you will have them readied. 

Queen: There are sheeps' trotters below; 
you might know some tasty way to dress them. 

Manus: I do surely. I'll put the trotters 
within a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and 
the goose in a suckling pig, and the suckling 
pig in a fat lamb, and the lamb in a calf, and 
the calf in a Maderalla , . . 

King: What now is a Maderalla? 

Manus: He is a beast that saves the cook 
trouble, swallowing all those meats one after 
another — in Sorcha. 

King: That should be a very pretty dish. 



66 The Dragon 

Let you go make a start with it the way we 
will not be famished before nightfall. Bring 
him, Dall Glic, to the larder. 

Ball Glic: I'm in dread it's as good for him 
to stop where he is. 

King: What are you saying? 

Dall Glic: Those lads of apprentices that 
left nothing in it only bare hooks. 

Nurse: It is the Queen would give no leave 
for more provision to come in, saying there 
was no one to prepare it. 

Manus: If that is so, I will be forced to lay 
my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and 
the Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in 
meat at my bidding. 

King: Hurry on so. 

Queen: I myself will go and give you in- 
structions what way to use the kitchen. 

Manus: Not at all! What I do I'd as lief 
do in your own royal parlour ! {Blows whistle; 
two dark-skinned men come in with vessels.) 
Give me here those pots and pans ! 

Queen: What now is about to take place? 



The Dragon 67 

Dall Glic: I not to be blind, I would say 
those to be very foreign-looking men. 

King: It would seem as if the world was 
grown to be very queer. 

Queen: So it is, and the mastery being given 
to a cook. 

Manus: So it should be too ! It is the King 
of Shades and Shadows would have rule over 
the world if it wasn't for the cooks ! 

King: There's some sense in that now. 

{Strange men are moving and arrang- 
ing baskets and vessels. ) 

Manus: There was respect for cooks in the 
early days of the world. What way did the 
Sons of Tuireann get their death but going 
questing after a cooking spit at the bidding of 
Lugh of the Long Hand! And if a spit was 
worthy of the death of heroes, what should the 
man be worth that is skilled in turning it? 
What is the difference between man and beast ? 
Beast and bird devour what they find and have 
no power to change it. But we are Druids of 
those mysteries, having magic and virtue to 
turn hard grain to tender cakes, and the very 



68 The Dragon 

skin of a grunting pig to crackling causing 
quarrels among champions, and it singing upon 
the coals. A cook! If I am I am not without 
good generations before me! Who was the 
first old father of us, roasting and reddening 
the fruits of the earth from hard to soft, from 
bitter to kind, till they are fit for a lady's plat- 
ter? What is it leaves us in the hard cold of 
Christmas but the robbery from earth of 
warmth for the kitchen fire of (takes off cap) 
the first and foremost of all master cooks — 
the Sun! 

Princess: You are surely not ashamed of 
your trade ! 

Manns: To work now, to work. I'll engage 
to turn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt 
or Pharamond King of the Franks! Here, 
Queen, is a silver-breast phoenix — draw out 
the feathers — they are pure silver — fair and 
clean. {Queen plucks eagerly.) King, take 
your golden sceptre and stir this pot. 
{Gives him one.) 

King: {Interested.) What now is in it? 

Manns: A broth that will rise over the side 



The Dragon 69 

and be consumed and split if you stop stirring 
it for one minute only! (King stirs furi- 
ously.) Princess (She is looking on and he 
goes over to her), there are honey cakes to roll 
out, but I will not ask you to do it in dread that 
you might spoil the whiteness . . . 

Princess: I have no mind to do it. 

Manus: Of the flour! 

Princess: Give them here. 

{Rolls them out indignantly.) 

Manus: That is right. Take care, King, 
would the froth swell over the brim. 

Princess: It seems to me you are doing but 
little yourself. 

Manus: I will turn now and .... boil 
these eggs. 

{Takes some on a plate; they roll off.) 

Princess: You have broken them. 

Manus: (Disconcerted.) It was to show 
you a good trick, how to make them sit up on 
the narrow end. 

Princess: That is an old trick in the world. 

Manus: Every trick is an old one, but with 
a change of players, a change of dress, it comes 



70 The Dragon 

out as new as before. Princess (speaks low), I 
have a message to give you and a pardon to ask. 

Princess: Give me out the message. 

Manns: Take courage and keep courage 
through this day. Do not let your heart fail. 
There is help beside you. 

Princess: It has been a troublesome day in- 
deed. But there is a worse one and a great 
danger before me in the far away. 

Manus: That danger will come to-day, the 
message said in the dream. Princess, I have 
a pardon to ask you. I have been playing vani- 
ties. I think I have wronged you doing this. 
It was surely through no want of respect. 

Gatekeeper: {Coming in.) There is word 
come from Ballyvelehan there is a coach and 
horses facing for this place over from Ought- 
mana. 

Queen: Who would that be ? 

Gatekeeper: Up on the hill a woman was, 
brought word it must be some high gentleman. 
She could see all colours in the coach, and 
flowers on the horse's heads. 
{Goes out.) 



The Dragon 71 

Dall Glic: That is good hearing. I was in 
dread some man we would have no welcome 
for would be the first to come in this day. 

Queen: Not a fear of it. I had orders given 
to the Gateman who he would and would 
not keep out. I did that the very minute 
after the King making his proclamation and 
his law. 

King: Pup, pup. You need not be drawing 
that down. 

Queen: It is well you have myself to care 
you and to turn all to good. I gave orders to 
the Gateman, I say, no one to be let in to the 
door unless carriage company, no other ones, 
even if they should wipe their feet upon the 
mat. I notched that in his mind, telling him 
the King was after promising the Princess Nu 
in marriage to the first man that would come 
into the house. 

Manus: The King gave out that word? 

Queen: I am after saying that he did. 

Dall Glic: Come along, lad. Don't be put- 
ting ears on yourself. 



72 The Dragon 

Manus: I ask the King did he give out that 
promise as the Queen says? 

King: I have but a poor memory. 

Nurse: The King did say it within the hour, 
and swore to it by the oath of his people, tak- 
ing contracts of the sun and moon of the air ! 

Dall Glic: What is it to you if he did? 
Come on, now. 

Manus: No. This is a matter that concerns 
myself. 

Queen: How do you make that out? 

Manus: You, that called me in, know well 
that I was the first to come into the house. 

Queen: Ha, ha! You have the impudence! 
It is a man the King said. He was not talking 
about cooks. 

Manus: (To the King-) I am before you 
as a serving lad, and you are a. King in Ireland. 
Because you are a King and I your hired ser- 
vant you will not refuse me justice. You gave 
your word. 

King: If I did it was in haste and in vexa- 
tion, and striving to save her from destruction. 



The Dragon 73 

Manus: I call you to keep to your word and 
to give your daughter to no other one. 

Queen: Speak out now, Dall Glic, and give 
your opinion and your advice. 

Dall Glic: I would say that this lad going 
away would be no great loss. 

Manus: I did not ask such a thing, but as 
it has come to me I will hold to my right. 

Queen: It would be right to throw him to 
the hounds in the kennel ! 

Manus: (To King.) I leave it to the judg- 
ment of your blind wise man. 

Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Take care would 
you offend myself or the King! 

Manus: I put it on you to split justice as it 
is measured outside the world. 

Dall Glic: It is hard for me to speak. He 
has laid it hard on me. My good eye may go 
asleep, but my blind eye never sleeps. In the 
place where it is waking, an honourable man, 
king or beggar, is held to his word. 

King: Is it that I must give my daughter to 
a lad that owns neither clod nor furrow? 



74 The Dragon 

Whose estate is but a shovel for the ashes and 
a tongs for the red coals. 

Queen: It is likely he is urged by the sting 
of greed — it is but riches he is looking for. 

King: I will not begrudge him his own ask- 
ing of silver and of gold! 

Manus: Throw it out to the beggars on the 
road! I would not take a copper half -penny! 
I'll take nothing but what has come to me from 
your own word ! 

(King bows his head.) 

Princess: (Coming forzvard.) Then this 
battle is not between you and an old king that is 
feeble, but between yourself and myself. 

Manus: I am sorry, Princess, if it must be 
a battle. 

Princess: You can never bring me away 
against my will. 

Manus: I said no word of doing that. 

Princess: You think, so, I will go with you 
of myself? The day I will do that will be the 
day you empty the ocean ! 

Manus: I will not wait longer than to-day. 



The Dragon 75 

Princess: Many a man waited seven years 
for a king's daughter ! 

Manus: And another seven — and seven gen- 
erations of hags. But that is not my nature. 
I will not kneel to any woman, high or low, or 
crave kindness that she cannot give. 

Princess: Then I can go free! 

Manus: For this day I take you in my 
charge. I cross and claim you to myself, un- 
less a better man will come. 

Princess: I would think it easier to find a 
better man than one that would be worse to 
me! 

Manus: If one should come that you think 
to be a better man, I will give you your own 
way. 

Princess: It is you being in the world at all 
that is my grief. 

Manus: Time makes all things clear. You 
did not go far out in the world yet, my poor 
little Princess. 

Princess: I would be well pleased to drive 
you out through the same world! 

Manus: With or without your goodwill, I 



76 The Dragon 

will not go out of this place till I have carried 
out the business I came to do. 

Dall Glic: Is it the falling of hailstones I 
hear or the rumbling of thunder, or is it the 
trots of horses upon the road? 

Queen: {Looking out.) It is the big man 
that is coming — Prince or Lord or whoever he 
may be. ( To Dall Glic. ) Go now to the door 
to welcome him. This is some man worth 
while. {To M anus.) Let you get out of this. 

Manus: No, whoever he is I'll stop and face 
him. Let him know we are players in the one 
game! 

King: And what sort of a fool will you 
make of me, to have given in to take the like of 
you for a son-in-law? They will be putting 
ridicule on me in the songs. 

Queen: If he must stop here we might put 
some face on him. . . . If I had but a decent 
suit. . . . Give me your cloak, Dall Glic. ( He 
gives it. ) Here now . . . {To Manus. ) Put 
this around you. . . . {Manus takes it awk- 
wardly. ) It will cover up your kitchen suit. 

Manus: Is it this way? 



The Dragon 77 

Queen: You have no right handling of it — 
stupid clown ! This way ! 

Manus: (Flinging it off.) No, I'll change 
no more suits ! It is time for me to stop fooling 
and give you what you did not ask yet, my 
name. I will tell out all the truth. 

Gatekeeper: (At door.) The King of Sor- 
cha ! ( Taig comes in. ) 

King and Queen: The King of Sorcha! 
(They rush forward to greet him.) 

Nurse: (To Manus.) Did ever anyone hear 
the like! 

Manus: It seems as if there will be a judg- 
ment between the man and the clothes ! 

Queen: (To Taig.) There is someone here 
that you know. King. This young man is giv- 
ing out that he was your cook. 

Taig: He was not I never laid an eye on 
him till this minute. 

Queen: I was sure he was nothing but a 
liar when he said he would tell the truth! 
Now, King, will you turn him out the door ? 

King: And what about the great dinner he 
has me promised? 



yS The Dragon 

Manus: Be easy King. Whether or no you 
keep your word to me I'll hold to mine ! {Blows 
whistle.) In with the dishes! Take your 
places ! Let the music play out ! 

{Music plays, the strange men wheel in 
tables and dishes. ) 

CURTAIN 



ACT III 



ACT III 

Scene: Same. Table cleared of all hut vessels 
of fruit, cocoa-nuts, etc. Queen and Taig 
sitting in front, Nurse and Dall Glic 
standing in background. 

Queen: Now, King, the dinner being at an 
end, and the music, we have time and quiet to 
be talking. 

Taig: It is with the King's daughter I am 
come to talk. 

Queen: Go, Dall Glic, call the Princess. She 
will be here on the minute, but it is best for you 
to tell me out if it is to ask her in marriage you 
are come. 

Taig: It is so, where I was after being told 
she would be given as a wife to the first man 
that would come into the house. 

Queen: And who in the world wide gave 
that out? 

Taig: It was the Gateman said it to a 

8i 



82 The Dragon 

hawker bringing lobsters from the strand, and 
that got no leave to cross the threshold by rea- 
son of the oath given out by the King. The 
half of the kingdom she will get, they were 
telling me, and the king living, and the whole 
of it after he will be dead. 

Nurse: There did another come in before 
you. Let me tell you that much ! 

Taig: There did not. The lobster man that 
set a watch upon the door. 

Queen: A great honour you did us coming 
asking for her, and you being King of Sorcha! 

Taig: Look at my ring and my crown. They 
will bear witness that I am. And my kind coat 
of cotton and my golden shirt ! And under that 
again there's a stiff pocket. (Slaps it.) Is 
there e'er a looking-glass in any place? (Gets 
up.) 

Dall Glic: There is the shining silver basin 
of the swans in the garden without. 

Taig: That will do. I would wish to look 
tasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife. 
{He and Dall Glic go outside window hut in 
sight.) 



The Dragon 83 

(Princess comes in very proud and sad.) 

Queen: You should be proud this day, Nu- 
ala, and so grand a man coming asking you in 
marriage as the King of Sorcha. 

Nurse: Grand, indeed! As grand as hands 
and pins can make him. 

Princess: Are you not satisfied to have 
urged me to one man and promised me to an- 
other since sunrise? 

Queen: What way could I know there was 
this match on the way, and a better match be- 
yond measure? This is no black stranger go- 
ing the road, but a man having a copper crown 
over his gateway and a silver crown over his 
palace door ! I tell you he has means to hang 
a pearl of gold upon every rib of your hair! 
There is no one ahead of him in all Ireland, 
with his chain and his ring and his suit of the 
dearest silk! 

Princess: If it was a suit I was to wed with 
he might do well enough. 

Queen: Equal in blood to ourselves! 
Brought up to good behaviour and courage and 
mannerly ways. 



84 The Dragon 

Princess: In my opinion he is not. 

Queen: You are talking foolishness. A 
King of Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is 
he himself sets the tune for manners. 

Princess: He gave out a laugh when old 
Michelin slipped on the threshold. He kicked 
at the dog under the table that came looking 
for bones. 

Queen: I tell you what might be ugly be- 
haviour in a common man is suitable and right 
in a king. But you are so hard to please and 
so pettish, I am seven times tired of yourself 
and your ways. 

Princess: If no one could force me to give 
in to the man that made a claim to me to-day, 
according to my father's bond, that bond is 
there yet to protect me from any other one. 

Queen: Leave me alone! Myself and the 
Dall Glic will take means to rid you of that lad 
from the oven. I'll send in now to you the 
King of Sorcha. Let you show civility to him, 
and the wedding-day will be to-morrow. 

Princess: I will not see him, I will have 
nothing to do with him; I tell you if he had the 



The Dragon 85 

rents of the whole world I would not go with 
him by day or by night, on foot or on horse- 
back, in light or in darkness, in company or 
alone ! 

( Queen has gone while she cries this out. ) 

Nurse: The luck of the seven Saturdays on 
himself and on the Queen! 

Princess: Oh, Muime, do not let him come 
near me ! Have you no way to help me ? 

Nurse: It's myself that could help you if I 
was not under bonds not to speak! 

Princess: What is it you know? Why 
won't you say one word? 

Nurse: He put me under spells, . . . There 
now, my tongue turned with the word to be 
dumb. 

Taig: (At the windozu-) Not a fear of me. 
Queen. It won't be long till I bring the Prin- 
cess around. 

Princess: I will not stay! Keep him here 
till I will hide myself out of sight! (Goes.) 

Taig: (Coming in.) They told me the 
Princess was in it. 



86 The Dragon 

Nurse: She has good sense, she is in some 
other place. 

Taig: {Sitting down-) Go call her to me. 

Nurse: Who is it I will call her for? 

Taig: For myself. You know who I am. 

Nurse: My grief that I do not! 

Taig: I am the King of Sorcha. 

Nurse: If you say that lie again there will 
blisters rise up on your face. 

Taig: Take care what you are saying, you 
hag! 

Nurse: I know well what I am saying. I 
have good judgment between the noble and the 
mean blood of the world. 

Taig: The Kings of Sorcha have high, 
noble blood. 

Nurse: If they have, there is not so much 
of it in you as would redden a rib of scutch- 
grass. 

Taig: You are crazed with folly and age. 

Nurse: No, but I have my wits good enough. 
You ought to be as slippery as a living eel, I'll 
get satisfaction on you ye<- ! I'll show out who 
you are! 



The Dragon 87 

Taig: Who am I so? 

Nurse: That is what I have to get know- 
ledge of, if I must ask it at the mouth of cold 
hell! 

Taig: Do your best! I dare you! 

Nurse: I will save my darling from you as 
sure as there's rocks on the strand! A girl 
that refused sons of the kings of the world! 

Taig: And I will drag your darhng from 
you as sure as there's foxes in Oughtmana ! 

Nurse: Oughtmana ... Is that now your 
living place? 

Taig: It is not. ... I told you I came from 
the far-off kingdom of Sorcha. Look at my 
cloak that has on it the sign of the risen sun ! 

Nurse: Cloaks and suits and fringes. You 
have a great deal of talk of them. . . . Have 
you e'er a needle around you, or a shears ? 

Taig: (His hand goes to breast of coat, but 
he withdraws it quickly. ) Here . . . no . . . 
What are you talking about? I know nothing 
at all of such things. 

Nurse: In my opinion you do. Hearken 



88 The Dragon 

now. I know where is the real King of Sor- 
cha! 

Taig: Bring him before me now till I'll 
down him ! 

Nurse: Say that the time you will come face 
to face with him! Well, I'm under bonds to 
tell out nothing about him, but I have liberty to 
make known all I will find out about yourself. 

Taig: Hurry on so. Little I care when once 
I'm wed with the King's daughter! 

Nurse: That will never be! 

Taig: The Queen is befriending me and in 
dread of losing me. I will threaten her if there 
is any delay I'll go look for another girl of 
a wife. 

Nurse: I will make no delay. I'll have my 
story and my testimony before the white dawn 
of the morrow. 

Taig: Do so and welcome! Before the yel- 
low light of this evening I'll be the King's son- 
in-law! Bring your news, then, and little 
thanks you'll get for it ! The King and Queen 
must keep up my name then for their own 
credit's sake. {Makes a face at her as King 



The Dragon 89 

comes in with Dall Glic, and servants with 
cushions. Nurse goes out, shaking her fist.) 
(Rises.) I was just asking to see you, King, to 
say there is a hurry on me. . . . 

King: (Sitting down on window seat zuhile 
Servant arranges cushions about him.) Keep 
your business a while. It's a poor thing to be 
going through business the very minute the 
dinner is ended. 

Taig: I wouldn't but that it is pressing. 

King: Go now to the Queen, in her parlour, 
and be chatting and whistling to the birds. I 
give you my word since I rose up from the table 
I am going here and there, up and down, crav- 
ing and striving to find a place where I'll get 
leave to lay my head on the cushions for one 
little minute. 

(Taig goes reluctantly.) 

Dall Glic: (Taking cushions from serv- 
ants.) Let you go now and leave the King to 
his rest. 

(They go out.) 

King: I don't know in the world why any- 
one would consent to be a king, and never to 



90 The Dragon 

be left to himself, but to be worried and wear- 
ied and interfered with from dark to daybreak 
and from morning to the fall of night. 

Dall Glic: I will be going out now. I have 
but one word only to say . . . 

King: Let it be a short word! I would be 
better pleased to hear the sound of breezes in 
the sycamores, and the humming of bees in the 
hive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the 
sea! 

Dall Glic: There is one thing only could 
cause me to annoy you. 

King: It should be a queer big thing that 
wouldn't wait till I have my rest taken. 

Dall Glic: So it is a big matter, and a 
weighty one. 

King: Not to be left in quiet and all I am 
after using ! Food that was easy to eat ! Drink 
that was easy to drink ! That's the dinner that 
was a dinner. That cook now is a wonder ! 

Dall Glic: That is now the very one I am 
wishful to speak about. 

King: I give you my word, I'd sooner have 



The Dragon 91 

one goose dressed by him than seven dressed 
by any other one! 

Dall die: The Queen that was urging me 
for to put my mind to make out some way to 
get quit of him. 

King: Isn't it a hard thing the very minute 
I find a lad can dress a dinner to my Hking, I 
must be made an attack on to get quit of him? 

Dall Glic: It is on the head of the Princess 
Nu. 

King: Tell me this, Dall Glic. Supposing, 
now, he was ... in spite of me ... to wed 
with her . . . against my will . . . and it 
might be unknownst to me. 

Dall Glic: Such a thing must not happen. 

King: To be sure, it must not happen. Why 
would it happen ? But supposing — I only said 
supposing it did. Would you say would that 
lad grow too high in himself to go into the 
kitchen ... it might be only an odd time . . . 
to oblige me . . . and dress a dinner the same 
as he did to-day? 

Dall Glic: I am sure and certain that he 
would not. It is the way, it is, with the com- 



92 The Dragon 

mon sort, the lower orders. He'd be wishful 
to sit on a chair at his ease and to leave his 
hand idle till he'd grow to be bulky and wishful 
for sleep. 

King: That is a pity, a great pity, and a 
great loss to the world. A big misfortune he to 
have got it in his head to take a liking to the 
girl. I tell you he was a great lad behind the 
saucepans ! 

Dall Glic: Since he did get it in his head, 
it is what we have to do now, to make an end 
of him. 

King: To gaol him now, and settle up ovens 
and spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he, 
to shorten the day, he apt to start cooking? 

Dall Glic: In my belief he will do nothing 
at all, but to hold you to the promise you made, 
and to force you to send away the King of 
Sorcha. 

King: To have the misfortune of a cook for 
a son-in-law, and without the good luck of 
profiting by what he can do in his trade ! That 
is a hard thing for a father to put up with, let 
alone a king! 



The Dragon 93 

Dall Glic: If you will but listen to the ad- 
vice I have to give . . . 

King: I know it without you telling me. 
You are asking me to make away with the lad ! 
And who knows but the girl might turn on me 
after, women are so queer, and say I had a 
right to have asked leave from herself? 

Dall Glic: There will no one suspect you of 
doing it, and you to take my plan. Bid them 
heat the big oven outside on the lawn that is 
for roasting a bullock in its full bulk. 

King: Don't be talking of roasted meat! I 
think I can eat no more for a twelvemonth ! 

Dall Glic: There will be nothing roasted that 
any person will have occasion to eat. When 
the oven door will be open, give orders to your 
bullies and your foot-soldiers to give a tip to 
him that will push him in. When evening 
comes, news will go out that he left the meat to 
burn and made off on his rambles, and no more 
about him. 

King: What way can I send orders when 
I'm near crazed in my wits with the want of 



94 The Dragon 

rest. A little minute of sleep might soothe and 
settle my brain. 

(Lies down.) 

Dall Glic: The least little word to give leave 
... or a sign . . . such as to nod the head. 

King: I give you my word, my head is tired 
nodding! Be off now and close the door after 
you and give out that anyone that comes to this 
side of the house at all in the next half-hour, 
his neck will be on the block before morning! 

Dall Glic: {Hurriedly-) I'm going! I'm 
going. 

{Goes.) 

King: {Locking door and drawing window 
curtains.) That you may never come back 
till I ask you ! {Lies- down and settles himself 
on pillows.) I'll be tying here in my lone lis- 
tening to the pigedns seeking their meal. 
"Coo-coo," they're saying, "Coo-coo." 
{Closes eyes.) 

Nurse: {At door.) Who is it locked the 
door? {Shakes it.) Who is it is in it? What 
is going on within? Is it that some bad work 
is after being done in this place? Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! 



The Dragon 95 

King: (Sitting up.) Get away out of that, 
you torment of a nurse! Be off before I'll 
have the life of you! 

Nurse: The Lord be praised, it is the King's 
own voice ! There's time yet ! 

King: There's time, is there? There's time 
for everyone to give out their chat and their 
gab, and to do their business and take their 
ease and have a comfortable life, only the 
King! The beasts of the field have leave to 
lay themselves down in the meadow and to 
stretch their limbs on the green grass in the 
heat of the day, without being pestered and 
plagued and tormented and called to and wak- 
ened and worried, till a man is no less than 
wore out! 

Nurse: Up or down, I'll say what I have to 
say, if it costs me my life. It is that I have to 
tell you of a plot that is made and a plan! 

King: I won't listen! I heard enough of 
plots and plans within the last three minutes! 

Nurse: You didn't hear this one. No one 
knows of it only myself. 

King: I was told it by the Dall Glic. 



96 The Dragon 

Nurse: You were not! I am only after 
making it out on the moment ! 

King: A plot against the lad of the sauce- 
pans? 

Nurse: That's it! That's it! Open now the 
door! 

King: (Putting a cushion over each ear and 
settling himself to sleep. ) Tell away and wel- 
come! 

(Shuts eyes.) 

Nurse: That's right! You're listening. 
Give heed now. That schemer came a while 
ago letting on to be the King of Sorcha is no 
such thing! What do you say? . . . Maybe 
you knew it before? I wonder the Dall Glic 
not to have seen that for himself with his one 
eye. . . . Maybe you don't believe it? Well, 
I'll tell it out and prove it. I have got sure 
word by running messenger that came cross- 
cutting over the ridge of the hill. . . . That 
carrion that came in a coach, pressing to bring 
away the Princess before nightfall, giving 
himself out to be some great one, is no other 
than Taig the Tailor, that should be called 



The Dragon 97 

Taig the Twister, down from his mother's 
house from Oughtmana, that stole grand 
clothes which were left in the mother's charge, 
he being out at the time cutting cloth and shap- 
ing Hes, and has himself dressed out in them 
the way you'd take him to be King! (King 
has slumbered peacefully all through.) Now, 
what do you say? Now, will you open the 
door? 

Queen: (Outside.) What call have you to 
shouting and disturbing the King? 

Nurse: I have good right and good reason 
to disturb him! 

Queen: Go away and let me open the door. 

Nurse: I will go and welcome now; I have 
told out my whole story to the King. 

Queen: (Shaking door.) Open the door, 
my dear! It is I myself that is here! (King 
looks up, listens, shakes his head and sinks 
back.) Are you there at all, or what is it ails 
you? 

Nurse: He is there, and is after conversing 
with myself. 

Queen: (Shaking again.) Let me in, my 



98 The Dragon 

dear King! Open! Open! Open! unless that 
th€-4alling sickness is come upon you, or that 
you are maybe lying dead upon the floor! 

Nurse: Not a dead in the world. 

Queen: Go, Nurse, I tell you, bring the 
smith from the anvil till he will break asunder 
the lock of the door! 

{King, annoyed, waddles to door and 
opens it suddenly. Queen stumbles 
in.) 

King: What at all has taken place that you 
come bawling and calling and disturbing my 
rest? 

Queen: Oh! Are you sound and well? I 
was in dread there did something come upon 
you, when you gave no answer at all. 

King: Am I bound to answer every call and 
clamour the same as a hall-porter at the door ? 

Queen: It is business that cannot wait. 
Here now is a request I have written to the 
bully of the King of Alban, bidding him to 
strike the head off whatever man will put the 
letter in his hand. Write your name and sign 
to it, in three royal words. 



The. Dragon 99 

King: I wouldn't sign a letter out of my 
right hour if it was to make the rivers run 
gold. There is nothing comes of signing let- 
ters but more trouble in the end. 

Queen: Give me, so, to bind it a drop of your 
own blood as a token and a seal. You will not 
refuse, and I telling you the messenger will go 
with it, and that will lose his head through it, 
is no less than that troublesome cook! 

King: {With a roar.) Anyone to say that 
word again I will not leave a head on any neck 
in the kingdom ! I declare on my oath it would 
be best for me to take the world for my pillow 
and put that lad upon the throne ! 

{Queen goes hack frightened to door.) 
Gateman: {Coming in.) There is a man 
coming in that will take no denial. It is Fin- 
tan the Astrologer. 

{Fintan enters with Dall Glic, Nurse, 

Princess, Taic/, Manns and Prince 

of the Marshes crowding after 

him. ) 

King: Another disturbance! The whole 

world would seem to be on the move ! 



loo The Dragon 

Queen: Fintan! What brings him here 
again ? 

Fintan: A great deceit? A terrible decep- 
tion ! 

King: What at all is it? 

Fintan: Long and all as Vm in the world, 
such a thing never happened in my lifetime! 

Queen: What is it has happened? 

Fintan: It is not any fault of myself or any 
miscounting of my own! I am certain sure of 
that much. Is it that the stars of heaven are 
gone astray, they that are all one with a clock — 
unless it might be on a stormy night when they 
are wild-looking around the moon. 

King: Go on with your story and stop your 
raving. 

Fintan: The first time ever I came to this 
place I made a prophecy. 

Dall Glic: You did, about the child was in 
the cradle. 

Fintan: And that was but new in the world. 
It is what I said, that she was born under a cer- 
tain star, and that in a score of years all but 
two, whatever acting was going on in that star 



The Dragon loi 

at the time she was born, she would get her 
crosses in the same way. 

Dall Glic: The cross you foretold to her was 
to be ate by a Dragon. You laid down it would 
come upon a twelvemonth from this very day. 

Pint an: That's it. That was according to 
my reckoning. There was no mistake in that. 
And I thought better of the Seven Stars than 
they to make a fool of me, after all the respect 
I had showed them, giving my life to watching 
themselves and the plans they have laid down 
for men and for mortals. 

King: It seems as if I myself was the best 
prophet and that there is no Dragon at all. 

Pint an: What a bad opinion you have of me 
that I would be so far out as that ! It would be 
a deception and a disappointment out of meas- 
ure, there to come no Dragon, and I after fore- 
telling and prophesying him. 

King: Troth, it would be no disappointment 
at all to ourselves. 

Pint an: It would be better, I tell you, a score 
of king's daughters to be ate and devoured, 
than the high stars in th^ir courses to be 



102 The Dragon 

proved wrong. But it must be right, it surely 
must be right. I gave the prophecy according 
to her birth hour, that was one hour before the 
falling back of the sun. 

Ball Glic: It was not, but an hour before 
the rising of the sun. 

Fintan: Not at all! It was the Nurse her- 
self told me it was at evening she was born. 

Queen: There is the Nurse now. Let you 
ask her account. 

Fintan: {To Nurse.) It was yourself laid 
down it was evening! 

Nurse: Sure I wasn't in the place at all till 
Samhuin time, when she was near three months 
in the world. 

Fintan: Then it was some other hag the 
very spit of you! I wish she didn't tell a lie. 

Nurse: Sure that one was banished out of 
this on the head of telling lies. An hour ere 
sunrise, and before the crowing of the cocks. 
The Dall Glic will tell you that much. 

Dall Glic: That is so. I have it marked 
upon the genealogies in the chest. 

Fintan: That is great news ! It was a heavy 



The Dragon 103 

wrong was done me ! It had me greatly upset. 
Twelve hours out in laying down the birth- 
time ! That clears the character of myself and 
of the carwheel of the stars. I knew I could 
make no mistake in my office and in my billet ! 

King: Will you stop praising yourself and 
give out some sense? 

Fintan: Knowledge is surely the greatest 
thing in the world ! And truth ! Twelve hours 
with the planets is equal to twelve months on 
earth. I am well satisfied now. 

Queen: So the Dragon is not coming, and 
the girl is in no danger at all? 

Fintan: Not coming! Heaven help your 
poor head! Didn't I get word within the last 
half-hour he is after leaving his den in the 
Kingdoms of the Cold, and is at this minute 
ploughing his way to Ireland, the same as I 
foretold him, but that I made a miscount of a 
year? 

Nurse: {Putting her arm round Princess.) 
Och ! do not listen or give heed to him at all ! 

Queen: When is he coming so? 

Fintan: Amn't I tired telling you this day 



104 The Dragon 

in the place of this day twelvemonth. But as 
to the minute, there's too much lies in this place 
for me to be rightly sure. 

King: The curse of the seven elements upon 
him! 

Fintan: Little he'll care for your cursing. 
The whole world wouldn't stop him coming to 
your own grand gate. 

Princess: {Coming forward.) Then I am 
to die to-night ? 

Fintan: You are, without he will be turned 
back by someone having a stronger star than 
your own, and I know of no star is better, un- 
less it might be the sun. 

Queen: If you had minded me, and given 
in to ring the wedding bells, you would be safe 
out of this before now. 

Fintan: That Dragon not to find her before 
him, he will ravage and destroy the whole dis- 
trict iwith the poisonous spittle of his jaw, till 
the want will be so great the father will disown 
.his son and will not let him in the door. Well, 
good-bye to ye! Ye'll maybe believe me to 
have foreknowledge another time, and I 



The Dragon 105 

proved to be right. I have knocked great com- 
fort out of that! 
(Goes.) 

King: Oh, my poor child! My poor little 
Nu ! I thought it never would come to pass, I 
to be sending you to the slaughter. And I too 
bulky to go out and face him, having led an 
easy life! 

Princess: Do not be fretting-. 

King: The world is gone to and fro! I'll 
never ask satisfaction again either in bed or 
board, but to be wasting away with water- 
cresses and rising up of a morning before the 
sun rises in Babylon! (Weeps.) Oh, we 
might make out a way to baffle him yet! Is 
there no meal will serve him only flesh and 
blood? Try him with Grecian wine, and with 
what was left of the big dinner a while ago! 

Gateman: (Coming in.) There is some 
strange thing in the ocean from Aran out. At 
first it was but like a bird's shadow on the sea, 
and now you would nearly say it to be the big 
island would have left its moorings, and it 
steering its course towards Aughanish! 



io6 The Dragon 

Dall Glic: I'm in dread it should be the 
Dragon that has cleared the ocean at a leap ! 

King: {Holding Princess.) I will not give 
you up! Let him devour myself along with 
you! 

Dall Glic: {To Princess.) It is best for me 
to put you in a hiding-hole under the ground, 
that has seven locked doors and seven locks on 
the farthest door. It might fail him to make 
you out. 

Nurse: Oh, it would be hard for her to go 
where she cannot hear the voice of a friend or 
see the light of day! 

Princess: Would you wish me to save my- 
self and let all the district perish? You heard 
what Fintan said. It is not right for destruc- 
tion to be put on a whole province, and the 
women and the children that I know. 

Queen: There is maybe time yet for you to 
wed. 

Princess: So long as I am living I have a 
choice. I will not be saved in that way. It is 
alone I will be in my death. 

Manus: {Coming to King.) I am going out 



The Dragon 107 

from you, King. I might not be coming in to 
you again. I would wish to set you free from 
the promise you made me a while ago, and the 
bond. 

King: What does it signify now? What 
does anything signify, and the world turning 
here and there ! 

Manus: And another thing. I would wish 
to ask pardon of the King's daughter. I ought 
not to have laid any claim to her, being a 
stranger in this place and without treasure or 
attendance. And yet . . . and yet . . . 
(stoops and kisses hem of her dress), she was 
dear to me. It is a man who never may look on 
her again is saying that. 
{Turns to door.) 

Taig: He is going to run from the Dragon ! 
It is kind father for a scullion to be timid! 

Queen: It is in his blood. He is maybe not 
to blame for what is according to his nature. 

Manus: That is so. I am doing what is ac- 
cording to my nature. 

{Goes, Nurse goes after him.) 

Queen: {To Dall Glic.) Go throw a dish- 



io8 The Dragon 

cloth after him that the little lads may be mock- 
ing him along the road ! 

Dall Glic: I will not. I have meddled 
enough at your bidding. I am done with living 
under dread. Let you blind me entirely ! I am 
free of you. It might be best for me the two 
eyes to be withered, and I seeing nothing but 
the ever-living laws! 

Prince of Marshes: {Coming to Princess.) 
It is my grief that with all the teachers I had 
there was not one to learn me the handling of 
weapons or of arms. But for all that I will not 
run away, but will strive to strike one blow in 
your defence against that wicked beast. 

Princess: It is a good friend that would rid 
us of him. But it grieves me that you should 
go into such danger. 

Prince of Marshes: {To DcUl Glic.) Give 
me some sword or casting spears. 

(Dall Glic gives him spears.) 

Princess: I am sorry I made fun of you a 
while ago. I think you are a good kind man. 

Prince of Marshes: (Kissing her hand.) 



The Dragon 109 

Having that word of praise I will bring a good 
heart into the fight. 
(Goes.) 
(Taig is slipping out after him.) 

Queen: See now the King of Sorcha slipping 
away into the fight. Stop here now! (Pulls 
him back.) You have a life that is precious to 
many besides yourself. Do not go without 
being well armed — and with a troop of good 
fighting men at your back. 

Taig: I am greatly obliged to you. I think 
I'll be best with myself. 

Queen: You have no suit or armour upon 
you. 

Taig: That is what I was thinking. 

Queen: Here anyway is a sword. 

Taig: (Taking it.) That's a nice belt now. 
Well worked, silver thread and gold. 

Queen: The King's own guard will go out 
with you. 

Taig: I wouldn't ask one of them! What 
would you think of me wanting help ! A Dra- 
gon! Little I'd think of him. I'll knock the 
life out of him. I'll give him cruelty! 



no The Dragon 

Queen: You have great courage indeed! 

Taig: I'll cut him crossways and length- 
ways the same as a yard of frieze ! I'll make 
garters of his body! I'll smooth him with a 
smoothing iron! Not a fear of me! I never 
lost a bet yet that I wasn't able to pay it ! 

Gatenmn: (As he rushes in, Taig slips 
away.) The Dragon! The Dragon! I seen it 
coming and its mouth open and a fiery flame 
from it ! And nine miles of the sea is dry with 
all it drank of it ! The whole country is gath- 
ering the same as of a fair day for to see him 
devour the Princess. 

(Princess trembles and sinks into a 
chair. King, Queen and Dall Glic 
look from zvindow. They turn to 
her as they speak. ) 

Queen: There is a terrible splashing in the 
sea! It is like as if the Dragon's tail had 
beaten it into suds of soap! 

Dall Glic: He is near as big as a whale! 

King: He is, and bigger! 

Queen: I see him! I see him! He would 
seem to have seven heads ! 



The Dragon iii 

Dall Glic: I see but one. 

Queen: You would see more if you had your 
two eyes! He has six heads at the least! 

King: He has but one. He is twisting and 
turning it around. 

Dall Glic: He is coming up towards the 
flaggy shore! 

King: I hear him ! He is snoring like a flock 
of pigs ! 

Queen: He is rearing his head in the air! 
He has teeth as long as a tongs ! 

Dall Glic: No, but his tail he is rearing up! 
It would take a ladder forty feet long to get 
to the tip of it! 

Queen: There is the King of Sorcha going 
out the gate for to make an end of him. 

Dall Glic: So he is, too. That is great 
bravery. 

King: He is going to one side. He is come 
to a stop. 

Dall Glic: It seems to me he is ready to fall in 
his standing. He is gone into a little thicket 
of furze. He is not coming out, but is lying 



112 The Dragon 

crouched up in it the same as a hare in a tuft. 
I can see his shoulders narrowed up. 

Queen: He maybe got a weakness. 

King: He did, maybe, of courage. Shaking 
and shivering, he is Hke a hen in thunder. In 
my opinion, he is hiding from the fight. 

Queen: There is the Prince of the Marshes 
going out now, and his coach after him ! And 
his two aunts sitting in it and screeching to 
him not to run into danger ! 

King: He will not do much. He has not 
pith or power to handle arms. That sort brings 
a bad name on kings. 

Dall Glic: He is gone away from the coach. 
He is facing to the flaggy shore ! 

Queen: Oh, the Dragon has put up his head 
and is spitting at him ! 

King: He has cast a spear into its jaw! 
Good man ! 

{Princess goes over to window.) 

Dall Glic: He is casting another! His hand 
shook ... it did not go straight. He is gone 
on again! He has cast another spear! It 
should hit the beast ... it let a roar ! 



The Dragon 113 

Princess: Good little Prince! What way is 
the battle now ? 

Dall Glic: It will kill him with its fiery 
breath ! He is running now ... he is stum- 
bling . . . the Dragon is after him ! He is up 
again! The two Aunts have pushed him into 
the coach and have closed the iron door. 

King: It will fail the beast to swallow him 
coach and all. It is gone back to refresh itself 
in the sea. You can hear it puffing and plung- 
ing! 

Queen: There is nothing to stop it now. 
( To Princess. ) If you have e'er a prayer, now 
is the time to say it. 

Dall Glic: Stop a minute . . . there is an- 
other champion going out. 

King: A man wearing a saffron suit . . . 
who is he at all ? He has the look of one used 
to giving orders. 

Princess: (Looking out.) Oh ! he is but go- 
ing to his death. It would be better for me to 
throw myself into the tide and make an end 
of it. 

(Is rushing to door.) 



114 The Dragon 

King: {Holding her.) He is drawing his 
sword. Himself and the Dragon are thrusting 
at one another on the flags ! 

Princess: Oh, close the curtains! Shut out 
the sound of the battle. 

(Dall Glic closes curtains.) 
King: Strike up now a tune of music that 
will deafen the sound! 

{Orchestra plays. Princess is kneeling 
by King. Music changes from dis- 
cord to victory. Two Aunts and 
Gateman rush in. Noise of cheer- 
ing heard without as the Gateman 
silences music. ) 
Gateman: Great news and wonderful news 
and a great story! 

First Aunt: The fi^^ht is ended ! 
Second Aunt: The Dragon is brought to his 
last goal ! 

Gateman: That young fighting man that has 
him flogged ! Made at him like a wave break- 
ing on the strand! They crashed at one an- 
other like two days of judgment! Like the 
battle of the cold with the heat ! 



The Dragon 115 

First Aunt: You'd say he was going 
through dragons all his life! 

Second Aunt: It can hardly put a stir out 
of itself! 

Gateman: That champion has it baffled and 
mastered ! It is after being chased over seven 
acres of ground! 

First Aunt: Drove it to its knees on the 
flaggy shore and made an end of it! 

King: God bless that man to-day and to- 
morrow ! 

Second Aunt: He has put it in a way it will 
eat no more kings' daughters! 

Princess: And the stranger that mastered 
it — is he safe? 

First Aunt: What signifies if he is or is not, 
so long as we have our own young prince to 
bring home ! 

Gatekeeper: He is not safe. No sooner had 
he the beast killed and conquered than he fell 
dead, and the life went out of him. 

Princess: Oh, that is not right! He to be 
dead and I living after him! 

King: He was surely noble and high- 



ii6 The Dragon 

blooded. There are some that will be sorry 
for his death. 

Princess: And who should be more sorry 
than I myself am sorry? Who should keen 
him unless myself? There is a man that gave 
his life for me, and he young and all his days 
before him, and shut his eyes on the white 
world for my sake! 

Queen: Indeed he was a man you might have 
been content to wed with, hard and all as you 
are to please. 

Princess: I never will wed with any man 
so long as my life will last, that was bought for 
me with a life was more worthy by far than 
my own ! He is gone out of my reach ; let him 
wait for me to give him my thanks on the other 
side. Bring me now his sword and his shield 
till I will put them before me and cry my eyes 
down with grief ! 

Gateman: Here is his cap for you, anyway, 
and his cleaver and his bunch of skivers. For 
the champion you are crying was no other than 
that lad of a cook! 

Queen: That is not true! It is not possible! 



The Dragon 117 

Gateman: Sure I seen him myself going out 
the gate a while ago. He put off his cook's 
apparel and threw it along with these behind 
the turfstack. I gathered them up presently 
and I coming in the door. 

King: The world is gone beyond me entire- 
ly ! But what I was saying all through, there 
was something beyond the common in that 
boy! 

Queen: (To Princess, who is clinging to 
chair.) Let you be comforted now, knowing 
he cannot come back to lay claim to you in mar- 
riage, as it is likely he would, and he living. 

Princess: It is he saved me after my un- 
kindness! .... Oh, I am ashamed . , . . 
ashamed ! 

Queen: It is a queer thing a king's daughter 
to be crying after a man used to twisting the 
spit in place of weapons, and over skivers in 
the place of a sword! 

Princess! (Gropes and totters.) What has 
happened? There is something gone astray! 
I have no respect for myself. ... I cannot 
live! I am ashamed? Where is Nurse? 



ii8 The Dragon 

Muime ! Come to me Muime ! . . . My grief ! 
The man that died for me, whether he is of the 
noble or the simple of the world, it is to him I 
have given the love of my soul ! 

(Dall Glic supports her and lays her on 
window seat.) 

Nurse: (Rushing in.) What is it, honey? 
What at all are they after doing to you? 

Queen: Throw over her a skillet of water. 
She is gone into a faint. 

Dall Glic: {Who is bending over her.) She 
is in no faint. She is gone out. 

Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling! 
What call had I to leave you among them at 
all? 

King: Raise her up. It is impossible she 
can be gone. 

Dall Glic: Gone out and spent, as sudden as 
a candle in a blast of wind. 

King: Who would think grief would do 
away with her so sudden, there to be seven of 
the like of him dead? 

Nurse: (Rises.) What did you do to her 



The Dragon 119 

at all, at all? Or was it through the fright 
and terror of the beast? 

Queen: She died of the heartbreak, being 
told that the strange champion that had put 
down the Dragon was killed dead. 

Nurse: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie 
out of his mouth ? (Shouts in her ear. ) What 
would ail him to be dead? It is myself can tell 
you the true story. No man in Ireland ever 
was half as good as him ! It was himself mas- 
tered the beast and dragged the heart out of 
him and forced down a squirrel's heart in its 
place, and slapped a bridle on him. And he 
himself did but stagger and go to his knees in 
the heat and drunkenness of the battle, and 
rose up after as good as ever he was ! It is out 
putting ointments on him that I was up to this, 
and healing up his cuts and wounds ! Oh, what 
ails you, honey, that you will not waken? 

Queen: She thought it to be a champion and 
a high up man that had died for her sake. It 
is what broke her down in the latter end, hear- 
ing him to be no big man at all, but a clown ! 

Nurse: Oh, my darling! And I not here to 



120 The Dragon 

tell you! You are a motherless child, and the 
curse of your mother will be on me! It was 
no clown fought for you, but a king, having 
generations of kings behind him, the young 
King of Sorcha, Manus, son of Solas son of 
Lugh. 

King: I would believe that now sooner than 
many a thing I would hear. 

Nurse: {Keening.) Oh, my child, and my 
share! I thought it was you would be closing 
my eyes, and now I am closing your own ! You 
to be brought away in your young youth! 
Your hand that was whiter than the snow of 
one night, and the colour of the foxglove on 
your cheek. 

{A great shouting outside and hurst of 
music. A march played. Manus 
comes in, followed by Fintan and 
Prince of the Marshes. Shouts 
and music continue. He leads the 
Dragon by a bridle. The others 
are in front of Princess, huddled 
from Dragon. Queen gets up on 
a chair.) 



The Dragon 121 

Manus: Where is the Princess Nu? I have 
brought this beast to bow itself at her feet. 

(All are silent. Manns flings bridle to 
Fintan's hand. Dragon backs out. 
All go aside from Princess.) 

Nurse: She is here dead before you. 

Manus: That cannot be ! She was well and 
living half an hour ago. 

Nurse: (Rises.) Oh, if she could but waken 
and hear your voice! She died with the fret 
of losing you, that is heaven's truth ! It is tor- 
mented she was with these giving out you were 
done away with, and mocking at your weapons 
that they laid down to be the cleaver and the 
spit, till the heart broke in her like a nut. 

Manus: (Kneeling beside her.) Then it is 
myself have brought the death darkness upon 
you at the very time I thought to have saved 
you! 

Nurse: There is no blame upon you, but 
some that had too much talk! 
(Goes on keening,) 

Manus: What call had I to come humbug- 
ging and letting on as I did, teasing and tor- 



122 The Dragon 

meriting her, and not coming as a King should 
that is come to ask for a Queen! Oh, come 
back for one minute only till I will ask your 
pardon ! 

Dall Glic: She cannot come to you or an- 
swer you at all for ever. 

Manus: Then I myself will go follow you 
and will ask for your forgiveness wherever you 
are gone, on the Plain of Wonder or in the 
Many-Coloured Land! That is all I can do 
.... to go after you and tell you it was no 
want of respect that brought me in that dress, 
but hurry and folly and taking my own way. 
For it is what I have to say to you, that I gave 
you my heart's love, what I never gave to any 
other, since first I saw you before me in my 
sleep ! Here, now, is a short road to reach you ! 
( Takes sword. ) 

Prince of Marshes: {Catching his hand.) 
Go easy now, go easy. 

Manns: Take off your hand! I say I will 
die with her! 

Prince of Marshes: That will not raise her 
up again. But I, now, if I have no skill in kill- 



The Dragon 123 

ing beasts or men, have maybe the means of 
bringing her back to life. 

Nurse: Oh, my blessing on you! What is it 
you have at all? 

Prince of Marshes: {Taking hag from his 
Aunt.) These three leaves from the Tree of 
Power that grows by the Well of Healing. 
Here they are now for you, tied with a thread 
of the wool of the sheep of the Land of Prom- 
ise. There is power in them to bring one per- 
son only back to life. 

First Aunt: Give them back to me! You 
have your own life to think of as well as any 
other one! 

Second Aunt: Do not spend and squander 
that cure on any person but yourself ! 

Prince of Marshes: {Giving the leaves.) 
And if I have given her my love that it is likely 
I will give to no other woman for ever, indeed 
and indeed, I would not ask her or wish her to 
wed with a very frightened man, and that is 
what I was a while ago. But you yourself 
have earned her, being brave. 



124 1^^^ Dragon 

Manns: {Taking leaves.) I never will for- 
get it to you. You will be a brave man yet. 

Prince of Marshes: Give me in place of it 
your sword; for I am going my lone through 
the world for a twelvemonth and a day, till I 
will learn to fight with my own hand. 

{Manus gives him sword. He throws 
off cloak and outer coat and fas- 
tens it on. ) 

Nurse: Stand back, now. Let the whole of 
ye stand back. {She lays a leaf on the Prin- 
cess's mouth and one on each of her hands. ) I 
call on you by the power of the Seven Belts of 
the Heavens, of the Twelve Winds of the 
World, of the Three Waters of the Sea! 
{Princess stirs slightly.) 

King: That is a wonder of wonders! She 
is stirring! 

Manus: Oh, my share of the world! Are 
you come back to me? 

Princess: It was a hard fight he wrestled 
with. ... I thought I heard his voice, . . . 
Is he come from danger ? 

Nurse: He did. Here he is. He that saved 



The Dragon 125 

you and that killed the Dragon, and that let on 
to be a serving boy, and he no less than one of 
the world's kings! 

Manus: Here I am, my dear, beside you, to 
be your comrade and your company for ever. 
Princess: You! . . , Yes, it is yourself. 
Forgive me. I am sorry that I spoke unkindly 
to you a while ago ; I am ashamed that it failed 
me to know you to be a king. 

(She stands up, helped by Nurse.) 
Manus: It was my own fault and my folly. 
What way could you know it? There is noth- 
ing to forgive. 

Princess: But ... if I did not recognise 
you as a king . . . anyway . . . the time you 
dropped the eggs ... I was nearly certain 
that you were no cook! 
(They embrace.) 
Queen: There now I have everything 
brought about very well in the finish ! 

(A scream at door. Taig rushes in, fol- 
lozved by Sibby, in country dress. 
He kneels at the Queen's feet, hold- 
ing on to her skirt.) 



126 The Dragon 

Sibby: Bad luck and bad cess to you! Tor- 
ment and vexation on you! (Seises him by 
back of neck and shakes him.) You dirty little 
scum and leavings! You puny shrimp you! 
You miserable ninth part of a man! 

Queen: Is it King or the Dragon Killer he 
is letting on to be yet, or do you know what he 
is at all? 

Sibby: It's myself knows that, and does 
know it! He being Taig the tailor, my own 
son and my misfortune, that stole away from 
me a while ago, bringing with him the grand 
clothes of that young champion (points to 
Manus) and his gold! To borrow a team of 
horses from the plough he did, and to bring 
away the magistrate's coach! But I followed 
him ! I came tracking him on the road ! Put 
off now those shoes that are too narrow for 
you, you red thief, you ! For, believe me, you'll 
go facing home on shank's mare ! 

Taig: (Whimpering.) It's a very unkind 
thing you to go screeching that out before the 
King, that will maybe strike my head off! 

Sibby: Did ever you know of anyone mak- 



The Dragon 127 

ing a quarrel in a whisper ? To wed with the 
King's daughter, you would? To go vanquish 
the water-worm you would? I'll engage you 
ran before you went anear him! 

Taig: If I didn't I'd be tore with his claws 
and scorched with his fiery breath. It is likely 
I'd be going home dead ! 

Sibby: Strip off now that cloak and that 
bodycoat and come along with me, or I'll make 
split marrow of you! What call have you to 
a suit that is worth more than the whole of the 
County Mayo? You're tricky and too much 
tricks in you, and you were born for tricks ! It 
would be right you to be turned into the shape 
of a limping foxy cat ! 

Taig: {Weeping as he takes off clothes.) 
Sure I thought it no harm to try to go better 
myself. 

Prince of Marshes: (Giving his cloak and 
coat.) Here, I bestow these to you. If you 
were a while ago a tailor among kings, from 
this out you will be a king among tailors. 

Sibby: (Curtseying.) Well, then, my thou- 
sand blessings on you! He'll be as proud as 



128 The Dragon 

the world of that. Now, Taig, you'll be as 
dressed up as the best of them! Come on now 
to Oughtmana, as it is long till you'll quit it. 
(They go towards door.) 

Dragon: (Putting his head in at window.) 
Manus, King of Sorcha, I am starved with the 
want of food. Give me a bit to eat. 

Fintan: He is not put down! He will de- 
vour the whole of us! I'd sooner face a bullet 
and ten guns ! 

Dragon: It is not mannerly to eat without 
being invited. Is it any harm to ask where will 
I find a meal will suit me? 

Princess: Oh, does he ask to make a meal of 
me, after all? 

Dragon: I am hungry and dancing with the 
hunger ! It was you, Manus, stopped me from 
the one meal. Let you set before me another. 

King: There is reason in that. Drive up 
now for him a bullock from the meadow. 

Dragon: Manus, it is not bullocks I am crav- 
ing, since the time you changed the heart with- 
in me for the heart of a little squirrel of the 
wood. 



The Dragon 129 

Manns: (Taking a cocoa-nut from table.) 
Here is a nut from the island of Lanka, that 
is called Adam's Paradise. Milk there is in 
it, and a kernel as white as snow. 

(He throws it out. Dragon is heard 
crunching. ) 

Dragon: (Putting head in again.) More! 
Give me more of them! Give them out to me 
by the dozen and by the score! 

Manus: You must go seek them in the east 
of the world, where you can gather them in 
bushels on the strand. 

Dragon: So I will go there! I'll make no 
delay! I give you my word, I'd sooner one of 
them than to be cracking the skulls of kings' 
daughters, and the blood running down my 
jaws. Blood! Ugh! It would disgust me! 
I'm in dread it would cause vomiting. That 
and to have the plaits of hair tickling and tor- 
menting my gullet ! 

Princess: (Claps hands.) That is good 
hearing, and a great change of heart. 

Dragon: But if it's a tame dragon I am 
from this out, I'm thinking it's best for me to 



130 The Dragon 

make away before you know it, or it's likely 
ye'll be yoking me to harrow the clods, or to be 
dragging the water-car from the spring well. 
So good-bye the whole of ye, and get to your 
supper. Much good may it do you! I give 
you my word there is nothing in the universe 
I despise, only the flesh-eaters of Adam's race! 

CURTAIN. 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

I wrote The Dragon in 191 7, that now seems so 
many long years away, and I have been trying to 
remember how I came to write it. I think perhaps 
through some unseen inevitable kick of the swing 
towards gay-coloured comedy from the shadow of 
tragedy. It was begun seriously enough, for I see 
among my scraps of manuscripts that the earliest 
outline of it is entitled "The Awakening of a Soul," 
the soul of the Httle Princess who had not gone "far 
out in the world." And that idea was never quite 
lost, for even when it had all turned to comedy I see 
as an alternative name "A Change of Heart." For 
even the Dragon's heart is changed by force, as 
happens in the old folk tales and the heart of some 
innocent creature put in its place by the conqueror's 
hand; all change more or less except the Queen. She 
is yet satisfied that she has moved all things well, and 
so she must remain till some new breaking up or 
re-birth. 

As to the framework, that was once to have been 
the often-told story of a King's daughter given to 
whatever man can "knock three laughs out of her." 
As well as I remember the first was to have been when 
the eggs were broken, and another when she laughed 

131 



132 Author^s Note 

with the joy of happy love. But the third was the 
stumbling-blbck. It was necessary the ears of the 
Abbey audience should be tickled at the same time as 
those of the Princess, and old-time jests like those of 
Sir Dinadin of the Round Table seem but dull to ears 
of to-day. So I called to my help the Dragon that 
has given his opportunity to so many a hero from 
Perseus in the Greek Stories to Shawneen in those of 
KJltartan. And he did not sulk or fail me, for after 
one of the first performances the producer wrote: 
" I wish you had seen the play last night when a big 
Northern in the front of the stalls was overcome 
with helpless laughter, first by Sibby and then by the 
Dragon. He sat there long after the curtain fell, 
unable to move and wiping the tears from his eyes; 
the audiences stopped going out and stood and 
laughed at him." And even a Dragon may think it a 
feather in his cap to have made Ulster laugh. 

A. G. 
Coole, 
February, 1920. 



ORIGINAL CAST 

"The Dragon" was first produced at the Abbey 
Theatre, Dublin, on 21st April, 1919, with the follow- 
ing cast : 

The King Barry Fitzgerald 

The Queen Mary Sheridan 

The Princess Nula Eithne Magee 

The Dall Glic (The Blind Wise 

Man) Peter Nolan 

The Nurse Maureen Delany 

The Prince of the Marshes J. Hugh Nagle 

Manus — King of Sorcha Arthur Shields 

Fin tan — The Astrologer F. J. MacCormick 

Taig Florence Marks 

The Dragon Seaghan Barlow 

The Porter Stephen Casey 

The Gatekeeper .Hubert M'Guire 

Two Aunts of the Prince of the fEsME Ward 
Marshes Idymphna Daly 



133 



The Supernatural in 
Modern English Fiction 

By 

Dorothy Scarborough 

In a style brilliant and incisive, the author 
has written a book that, in these days 
when the occult is receiving so much serious 
attention, should appeal not only to those 
interested in literary history, but, to all 
who have faith that there are forces about 
us, as yet imperfectly explored, it is true, 
that partake of the supernatural. While 
paying tribute to the convincing achieve- 
ments in this division of fiction the author 
has been quick to detect the literary char- 
latan and to expose his lack of sincerity 
with her keen comments. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



Seven Short Plays 

By 
Lady Gregory 

Author of "New Comedies," "Our Irish Theatre," etc 

12°. 

The plays in this volume are the following: 
Spreading the News, Hyacinth Halvey, The 
Rising of the Moon, The Jackdaw, The Work» 
house Ward, The Travelling Man, The Gaol Gate, 
The volume also contains music for the songs in 
the plays and notes explaining the conception of 
the plays. 

Among the three great exponents of the 
modem Celtic movement in Ireland, Lady 
Gregory holds an unusual place. It is she from 
whom came the chief historical impulse which 
resulted in the re-creation for the present 
generation of the elemental poetry of early 
Ireland, its wild disorders, its loves and hates — 
all the passionate light and shadow of that fierce 
and splendid race. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



LRBJe'28 



Our Irish Theatre 

By Lady Gregory 

Author of "Irish Folk-History Plays," "New Comedies," etc. 
12°. Illustrated 

The volume presents an account not only 
of the great contemporary dramatic move- 
ment of Ireland, including such names as 
those of Synge, Yeats, and Lady Gregory 
herself, but of the stage history of the Dublin 
Theatre from its erection. A section of the 
book that possesses a very pertinent interest 
for American readers is that which has to do 
with the bitter antagonism which the Irish 
actors encountered on their first visit to our 
shores, an antagonism which happily expended 
itself and was converted upon the second 
visit of these players into approval and en- 
thusiastic endorsement. The book contains 
a full record of the growth and development 
of an important dramatic undertaking, in 
which the writer has been a directing force. 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



New Comedies 

By 
LADY GREGORY 

The Bogie Men — The Full Moon — Coats 
Darner's Gold— McDonough's Wife 

8°. With Portrait in Photogravure 

The plays have been acted with great success 
by the Abbey Company, and have been highly 
extolled by appreciative audiences and an en- 
thusiastic press. They are distinguished by a 
humor of unchallenged originality. 

One of the plays in the collection, "Coats," 
depends for its plot upon the rivalry of two 
editors, each of whom has written an obituary 
notice of the other. The dialogue is full of 
crisp humor. " McDonough's Wife," another 
drama that appears in the volume, is based on a 
legend, and explains how a whole town rendered 
honor against its will. " The Bogie Men " has as 
its underlying situation an amusing misunder- 
standing of two chimney-sweeps. The wit and 
absurdity of the dialogue are in Lady Gregory's 
best vein. " Damer's Gold "" contains the story 
of a miser beset by his gold-hungry relations. 
Their hopes and plans are upset by one they had 
believed to be of the simple of the world, but 
who confounds the Wisdom of the Wise. " The 
Full Moon" presents a little comedy enacted on 
an Irish railway station. It is characterized by 
humor of an original and delightful character 
and repartee that is distinctly clever. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 



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